Welcome to the 3rd instalment of my bike crash blog. Its a biggy but a lot has happened. Like I have said before, if you have not read the other 2, make sure you do before reading this just to catch up and understand what's going on. As always I want to start by spilling my heart out and saying a huge, super smashing, spiffing thank you for everything, all the txts, all the cards, all the Facebook loving and all the visitors who have made the trek to come and see me down here, I appreciate and love you for it. I want to say a special thank you to 3 amazing people (your all amazing but I just mean on this occasion) that have really gone beyond the call of duty. I will start with my mum and stepdad, Andy. You guys are everything to me, your love and undying surport is so appreciated and means a lot, even if I don't show it. I would not be the positive, strong guy I am right now without you both.  I love you both so much and thank you once again. The other person is my unbelievable girlfriend Megan. She is my rock, my chef, my cuddle battle friend, my world. I love you so much Meggy and you don't understand what you mean to me. I just want to do so much to say thank you but right now I can't. All you 3 guys deserve a big pat on the back and a lot of love in return from everyone else. Now please dont get jealous that I only mentioned these 3 peeps, like I said I love you all and appreciate everything that all of you have done!!! Right that's enough of that sloppy s*** :-)

Well from the last blog a lot has happened to be honest and I won't be able to give you the full experience but I will try my best. I have now had a cast and brace put on the leg. It's a lovely green colour for now but will no doubt change before home. Let me tell you about my trip down to the plasters unit. I was wheeled into the main department and greeted by lovely busy ladies. I had to ask for a specific cast so the the plastics unit could still check my flap and make sure everything was ok. As soon as I asked for this I was quickly shut down by what seemed to be the boss. Her response was this "those bloody people in plastics always expect this and that but they have no idea about plasters and how hard they are to do" blah blah blah. Then they all got on it and I just led there thinking "please don't hurt me" as they were wrapping my leg in this lightweight green cast. Thank god after 10 mins I fell asleep so I didn't have to listen to that chit chat. I was woken up by my smiling sister back in my plastics ward, was a nice wake up call, thanks Pixie. Then after a while of being back my nurse Jo (Jo is a lady of integrity and she does the job by the book. Not to be messed with either!!!) came to check my cast and the first thing she said was "I can't believe them, they never listen, they never give us what we ask and it really bugs me" or something along those lines. So as you can imagine I just thought "oh crap, here we go again". I've grown to learn that the NHS is run by alot of big air heads demanding unrealistic results from overworked and understaffed nurses. Simple as that. People are biting for no reasons due to stress. Our ward inparticilar is very understaffed and they still want to make more reductions according to Jo.  Its really bad and quite sad that all these nurses might one day loose their job just because of crap decisions made by people that don't experience things hands on. The nurses I have spoke to say it's a shame because the reason they started nursing was to care for patients. Sit with them for 5 mins and get to know them whilst caring for them at the same time, that's their passion, that's the reason they started. But now it's not like that, the nurses here don't have that time, they don't have the same connection with the patients as they use too (I wouldn't know personally, just going on their words). They feel as though they don't get that job satisfaction anymore. I find that sad that they feel like that all because of some big wigs making cuts in the wrong areas in this hospital. So that's my thoughts on that!!

So last time I was on about starting to dangle my leg off the bed to start getting blood into the foot and more importantly getting blood to my Lat  muscle which is now on the leg. This is quite a major part of the process as if the flap does not except the blood flow then it's game over and back to the start or even worse and "off with the leg" as they said in the old days....they just use to say head instead but my injury ain't quite that high in my body. The day came when it was time to finally get my dangle on. As I shimmied to the end of the bed I was almost getting nervous as it had been over 2 weeks since my foot had even hung off the bed. The leg started to ease it's way off the edge and I could feel the blood flowing down the back of my calf and as the foot reached the floor I could feel my whole foot fill with blood and it was quite intense and almost painfully nice. I held it down for 12 mins and boy did I feel like a new man, not just because of the blood flowing through my whole leg felt great but the fact I felt like I had some independance back, I finally can do something that does not involve shuffling around in a bed that's full of air that deflates and inflates every 2 minutes!! It's to stop bed sores but man it sucks but then again it's doing it's job and I haven't had a bad back since I have been here, so not all bad. We have been making some rather silly dangling jokes and just being silly about things just to keep spirits up. Thats what ward 104 is all about, and dont the nurses know about it. The muscle excepted the blood great anyway and it's looking good so far. Now during the first 5 days after my main op I had to have a thing called a bear hugger wrapped over my leg. It's an inflatable blanket of hot air blowing out at 43c! So during our super hot bank holiday weekend I had this horrid machine blowing extra hot air into an already boiling hot room. So as you can imagine my bed got pretty damn wet quite often in those 5 days. I hated it but it was a huge part of the healing process to stimulate blood circulation in the wound and new muscle. Another part of this recovery is having my cafater removed from my man piece. I was not looking forward to this as most of the blokes reading can imagine. You have to remember that this is a bit of small tubing that goes down your lil fellas eye and  into the bladder to steal your pee before you even think about peeing. So the nurse came round and told me it was time...yikes! Without being to crude, after 13 days the cafater forms a seal in your parts, so as she deflated the small ballon in the bladder region (you can feel a disturbance in the force lets just say) I knew that she was about to tug the pipe outta there....holy sheet!!! I told her to stop straight away. If you can imagine a kebab skewer on fire being poked down your pecka whilst being punched in the bladder by Mike Tyson then your kinda close to what that first sensation felt like, but after the seal had broke then it just felt odd as you could feel it leaving your bladder etc. Sorry to be crude. The other little things that had to be removed were the blood bags that were collecting my blood from my back and leg. When they got removed they felt really quite strange as they are under the skin. When they pulled them it just felt like they were pulling a wriggling worm from under my skin, not so nice but at least im blood bag and cafater free. Just time to learn how to pee in the horrible pee pots they give you. I don't know about you crazy lot but peeing in bed is not such a normal day to day thing for me so it's a bit of a mental fight to pee in them whilst led down. But as always I battle through and fill that sucker right up. I bet your thinking this is a gross blog so far, it's ok, it gets cleaner....I think? 

Well as I wrote in the last blog, my trusted scratchy stick is still doing a great job and has been a great aid to me. He helps out with shutting curtains, pulling cables, scratching places, teasing nurses (especially a phillipino nurse called Annie who is a bit scatty and nervous around me, she blatantly fancies the scratchy stick though) and lifting my toes on my bad leg as I have lost the muscles and stretched the nerve to do it myself. He is such a good scratchy stick, he has his own Facebook page as he escaped for 3 days and got up to some pretty amazing things, look him up. His name is stuballs scratcher. I didn't create his page by the way, he did! 

So after some dangling I was aloud to move to the next step.....the mighty all powerful zimmer frame. The frame is reinforced with tig welding and sporting some nice pirelli rubber on the feet. It's got a chrome frame and racing grey handles. Top speed of about 5mph or however fast I can push it on the day. I'm not aloud to put weight on the bad leg so it's a great support to start with. It was a very strange sensation to stand up for the first time in 15 days. It was extremly hard work and I was amazed at how much strength I had lost in my good leg and arms. Also I noticed how sore my good ankle is too. I only walked to the end of the room and back and that was enough to put me out of breath. Over the next few days I got more comfortable with it and was unaided and dangerous. I had my first wash by myself out of the bed next to the sink, ok I nearly passed out from overworking my new weak body, but that doesn't matter, it's progression. I also made a huge improvement to my comfort in here...I finally got to wear some boxer shorts. I've been naked for over 2 weeks so to feel those soft knik knacks hugging my groin again was pleasantly surprising. The fact that my lovely girlfriend packed the most embarrassing boxers I own was a laughing issue for most of the nurses and guys on my ward. They are a bright green number with red kisses on the bum. I got them free with a deodorant can whilst in Thailand last year. I'm not one for throwing free stuff away so I wasn't going to say no was I. Was I? Much to the delight of all the nurses and Meggy I wore them for the day before over filling a pee pot. Was not my fault at all, was the stupid air bed I'm on as it decides to drop right down on my hip area so the angle of the pee pot was no sufficient enough to stop a slight backlash. I'm not embarressed to say this as I have lost all dignity and man points being in here, so say what you want and take the piss (no pun intended) all you want, you won't break me now, not after what I been through. 

After the few days on the zimmer they gave me an upgrade. 2 long shiney sticks with love handles to hold onto. I heard someone say crutchless or something so I assume that's what they are. After i got into the swing of the crutchless things I headed for the great outdoors for the first time in 17 days. It was amazing, the fresh air in my lungs, the sun on my face and the feeling of freedom and independence came flooding trough my veins again. It felt awesome. So we headed back inside and I relaxed in the day room for the rest of the night to experience a different setting for once. I'm getting use to the crutches now but I need to slow down as im not as fit or strong as I was before the crash. I will be, but it's going to take time. Thanks to the other guys on my ward my journey here so far has been made a lot easier. I have a older guy opposite me called Pete and he broke his leg in a nasty way, next to me i have a 73 year old fella who was also hit off his bike and also another chap called Kev who is a chelsea fan.....need I say more. All top blokes and all spur each other along, if one of us is having a down day we lift each other up, we joke, we laugh, we tease the nurses and we have just become good team mates really. They make this so much simpler for me to stay positive day in, day out. It's part of the journey. Good positive attitude heals the body much quicker than a defeated, down in the dumps attitude. Clean mind, clean body. Keep your eyes on the prize!!!!

Now I'm sure this is a lot more blogage than than your use to but I'm  off all the drugs, drips and bags so my brain is actually functioning normal again for once. I hope you have enjoyed reading this, but I still know I have missed so much out, will fill that in at a later date in another blog to save your eyes for now. I'm recovering slowly but baby steps still get you to the same destination, it just takes you a little bit longer that's all. I will get to my destination that I have a vision in my mind of, no one will stop me. You all already know how much I appreciate the surpport and love, I still need it now and will do when I go home too. Be safe guys and love each other to the max, you never know what can happen. Love to all that lay eyes on this blog. 

Stu x