I'm sat up against the brown padded leather headboard in an Afghan Trust T-Shirt. The dog is lying by my side with her head on my good knee. The lamp is casting a very calming and diffused light over the duvet and the blind. The only sounds are a slight tick from the clock, the faint sounds of men working in the docks all the way across the other side of the river, the gentle hum of the fan on the laptop and my fingers tap tap tapping on the keys. From the back of the house, where the bedroom is, I can't hear the wind in the trees. I know there must be some breeze as the blind is moving ever so slightly. Through the tiny gaps in the blind, I can just about see lights and signs of life.
It's been a strange week or two. It's taken until now to get things sort of straight in my head. My Surgeon is lovely. His Registrar is a very charming, funny (and rather handsome) chap with whom I get on really well. I'm looking forward to working with him in the future - possibly. I think because he knows what I used to do for a living (and hopefully going back to shortly), he gives me more information as it's easier not to have to "dumb" things down. He also knows I want the truth and no bullshit. He got the formalities out of the way first - how are things, how is the pain, are you staying off the leg etc. Because I see him so often, he has worked out when I'm lying and can see that "I'm fine" and "yes" more often than not means I'm not fine and no. He gives me this "look" and then proceeds to tell me off, with a glint in his eye and a soft laugh. He then looked through the notes from the last operation. His face conveyed a thousand words. None of them good.
He asked if the Surgeon that did the operation had explained what was done. I told him that he had, but only briefly and it was during a morphine induced haze in recovery. He showed me some pictures of my knee joint and the femur. It wasn't pretty. Because there is very little cartilage (I'm down to about 1/10th of what there should be), the tibia has been rubbing on the femur, resulting in an exposed patch of cancellous (spongy) bone. That explains some of the pain. He then went through the tests that were performed once I was anaesthetised (they're a bit hard to do when you're awake as the pain restricts movement and can result in false positives). The tests confirmed that I've damaged the cruciate ligaments and I have a very unstable knee (tell me something we don't know - it's not normal for a knee to dislocate whenever it feels like it, or to give way so that I end up faceplanting wherever I may be). He then explained that they had put the mini fractures mainly in the area of exposed cancellous bone, and the rest in the surrounding base and head of the femur and tibia respectively. Then came the bombshell that I wasn't expecting.
Due to the state of the joint and the bones, I'm looking at roughly another 6 months of this pain and a recovery time of a year at least. That's assuming the operation has worked. It may require another go. There are other options, but I'm not going to discuss them now. Suffice to say, I've already heard these options and in my head and I'm fully aware of what they mean. I won't say I'm ok with it, but it has its plus points. It wasn't what I wanted to hear as I wanted to get back to work in the next 3-4 months. I've already had one discussion with him that made me cry, and now he does it again.
So now I'm left with some decisions to make. My heart wants to go back to working in Theatres, but realistically, if this operation is not successful, that's probably going to be a no go. So I'm left with Law. In an ideal world, I'd get a job with the CPS as I'd rather do Prosecution but it's not an easy place to get into. Do I do the Police Accreditation Course and stick with Criminal (the best of the lot) or do another course in some of the "up and coming" areas of Law, such as Prison Law. I could always combine my support of the Armed Forces and maybe do something to do with that. I guess I just need to look at all the options. Either way, it's going to be a testing 3-6 months to find out if the operation's worked.
One thing's for sure, I may be down but I'm certainly not out yet!!
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