Hey guys, I was not going to do a blog for another week or 2 but I felt I needed to write one as stuff is inside I wanted to get out. I know a lot of people will be thinking I'm ok now im out of hospital and I'm home but the reality is, the real test has just begun. So this blog might be a bit different to the others. You will see some of my emotions from how I'm feeling at the present time that have stored up over the last week thanks to my medication. Will quickly explain this a bit better. On the right hand side of my leg where they have stitched my old skin to my new skin from my back muscle, there is a patch of skin that has not quite taken the blood causing it to slowly die away and cause a bit of concern. At first I went on some antibiotics as it looked infected, then I came off them last Friday as my tablets had ran out. The head consultant said it looked ok and for mother nature to take it's course and just let it heal. So that's what I have been doing. Since then I have been having morning problems. I've not been sleeping the best, my dreams have all been a bit odd and I'm getting sickness and nausea. I've been getting this every morning for nearly a week now and it's been hard work to say the least. I will go into that a bit later but for now I will fill you in on some things that have happened the last week and a bit. 

So everyday I have a district nurse come out to change my dressings on my leg. It's a group of different nurses that circulate around the area, so everyday I will get a visit from one of them. Most of the nurses at first couldn't believe how young the wound actually was. Most of them have thought it's at least 3 months old, so that has been really encouraging to know im healing well. There is a lot of weakness in my leg, especially in the knee department. I have some mobility bending the knee straight but as soon as it needs it bend inwards or outwards I have nothing, I can't even control it. So I'm constantly in a cast or a whole leg brace. When I am not resting on the crutches I put 95% of my weight through my left leg and the rest just using to balance on my right. So when going to toilet or standing at the kitchen worktop it's quite hard to keep my balance as my left leg has always been the silly side, you know when you through a ball with your non strong arm it looks all girly and feels a bit odd, well thats my left leg too. So when I went to lean on the towel rail the other day and it snapped and all my weight went through my bad leg, you can imagine the pain I was in....well, maybe not but let me tell you, it was horrible, I felt sick to the stomach. Just sat there in silence for 2 mins. I got back up and went and told Megs and she looked after me and told me to sit down and rest (all I seem to do these days).  Also I have drop foot so I need 24/7 foot support, it's supported in the cast but not when out. It just droops around like a dead weight. It's so hard knowing that right now I can't control that. I can do nothing to make that foot pull up to it's normal position. It actually feels like I'm trying to lift the most impossible of objects on the top of my foot, just nothing there. They said the nerves might come back after a long time so to be patient and don't do to much.....the worst things my ears like to hear. The other thing is that I like to clean my house and do all the normal things that a normal person does, now when I'm told by my mum and girlfriend that I'm not aloud to do anything (because im not stable enough) it's pretty hard to except. I feel useless and almost get a bit upset because I feel I have lost independance in my life and it's not a nice feeling. I have learnt to except that yes, I do need help and support at the moment and that I know I would help them in a heartbeat if I was in full working order. Its just hard sometimes when you want to just grab that bit of your former life before the crash and get on with life as normal but then realise that you can't right now. It's my hardest challenge to date that's for sure. 

It was a beautiful hot day and after being sat down for so long inside, I had forgotten what it was like to just sit outside, have the warm sun on your face, a mild breeze covering one half of your body, the smell of freshly cut grass and listening to the sound of birds singing. It really is the simple things in life that remind you that life is precious, life can be stolen from you at any point. I got up and crutched my way over to the biggest rose I could find and I buried my snout right into that sucker and took 3 huge big deep snorts until I was satisfied. The smell reminded me that I was alive, I was strong and I can still fight what ever is thrown at me. I went back into the sun and just stood there and said a big thank you....whilst trying to do a few squats on my good leg of course..but I was quickly caught by my better half and quite rightly told off and made to sit back down and elevate the leg as by this time it looked like that purple girl off Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. So I did as I was told, but damn was it worth it!! 

Was time for a trip back to Frenchay for a check up from the head man. He was super happy with the way everything was going. At this stage I was still washing myself at the sink with a Ben Ten hand sponge (a kids cartoon character which thanks to my highly amusing girlfriend Meggy is what I have to use instead of a sponge or flannel) thingy mijiggy. I had not washed my bad leg since that horrible shower I mentioned about in the last blog. So when he found out he called me a smelly boy and demanded I showered when I get home. So I organised with the district nurses a time to come round just as I got out the shower so they could dress the leg straight away. So the first shower was going to be interesting. My parents put a non slip mat and shower curtain up along with a chair to sit on. My step dad Andy was waiting outside just incase I bailed and hurt myself. To be honest though I don't think neither of us wanted to be put in the position of me being sprawled out naked on the bathroom floor and him having to come to the rescue. So I got in and finally got to feel how nice it was to feel properly clean again. It felt great. As soon as I managed to swing my right leg back out (which feels heavy as a bag of spuds) the nurse arrived ready for dressing the leg back up. I felt clean and fresh so I though I deserved a nap. A bit later on in the day I got a phone call from a very little boy saying he just had a poo. Now to a lot of you that might sound gross but to me I thought it was amazing and funny. This little boy is my nephew Jamie and it was his first day without nappies on and he had a poo in the potty for the first time and was so proud he wanted to tell someone, uncle stuie was lucky enough to recieve that call. He went on to tell me he had pooed twice and had a wee too. Just hearing this little boy telling me about his accomplishments lightened up my day, thank you Jewwwwie.

On the bottom of my right foot I have a pressure sore on my heal. It's from being in the cast for a long time and having all the weight just go straight into that area so it's developed into a really sore point on the heal. It looks like a round brown blister the size of a 5p coin. For something so small it's given me the most amount of pain. It's been keeping me up at night and causing a lot of internal swearing bubbles to pop. Not nice when they pop I can assure you. Well when we went to Stroud physio for an appointment to get a new boot and brace fitted, they told me that they couldn't hand out any equipment to me because of insurance reasons etc. Infact she said that none of the hospitals in the gloucestershire area would hand me equipment because I am frenchays work and only they can deal with my injury. I was a bit peed off by this as I was looking forward to getting out the cast because of the pressure sore, so we asked if the plaster room would be able to cut away the back area so it would free up the heal and not cause it to rub, but again they said no too due to the same reasons. So a wasted trip and me left feeling in a right strop. So when we got home the surgeon Mr Andy Dowell aka the step father, got his saw out and chopped a bit off. I dressed the edge and it looked like a professional job, so much so that everyone that has seen it (including frenchay) thought it was a proper hospital job. The nurse in bristol even offered Andy a job...he should have taken it. I can just see him now in a little gown and hat. 

We went back to frenchay on tuesday just gone to get out the cast and into a new contraption...but again I needed a specialist appointment for that in Stroud, so as a temporary measure they made me a splint to keep my foot straight, but within 2 nights im back into my old trustworthy modified cast. It just didn't cut it to be honest, so I will just wait till I get this specialist appointment and see what they provide. The other reason I have mentioned that we went back to frenchay is because of the doctor (one of my head surgeons minions that I've never seen in my life) that I seen that day. He was an Egyptian man, very strong accent so hard to understand. We were talking about the stability in the future for my knee and ankle and he was talking about fusing both joints. As soon as I heard that word fusing my brain went into shutdown, I got hot and a bit sweaty and nothing anyone was saying was making sense, I just kept hearing the word fusing. It scared me, and I had to look to my step dad for a bit of support. He just shook his head to say don't listen to this fella. Then I remembered what my head surgeon said to me before I left hospital "dont listen to anyone else but me" so that was that. I will listen to these guys because they are professional and clever people, but choosing to believe or accept what they say is a different story. So many people just accept what their GP's, doctors or surgeons tell them and live life with that label. I can't do that, yes I know I have a very serious injury and yes I know it's going to take a very long time to heal but what I won't except is someone telling me I will have fused legs, someone telling me I might not run again or someone telling me I might not be able to kick someone in the face again (purely martial arts related I mean and not just some poor random chap). I will beat any odds that the doctors have put on me. I will show them that this milkybar kid ain't ready to bow down just yet.

Now for the hard bit for me. Most of you know the strong, positive and happy chap that I am but thanks to some medication, this week has been quite a mental battle for me. Like I said at the very start, I'm having all these morning issues. Most, if not all are down to medication and maybe partially the infection in my leg too. It's effecting my memory also, the short term part just seems to be a bit rubbish at the mo, just ask my amazing lady, Megs. She is the one who has to put up with me everyday at the moment but she is doing a fantastic job so all give her as much love as you can. Like I said these feelings mainly come in the morning time till about 12pm. They fade out but I can still feel the symptoms, just a lot weaker. I've had random urges to just crawl up into a little ball and cry, but the tears never come, I've had thoughts when I just wish my leg was better and maybe I should of had it amputated. I feel like I'm not in my body and I feel sickly and go from hot to cold then starring at my leg and getting angry because of what's happened. After a week of this it's been dragging me down and wearing me out. Today and 10:45am I broke and led there in my bed and cried. Yup I admit to crying, I'm not ashamed, I'm not embarrassed, real men cry. It felt good, I almost instantly felt like I was getting a bit better just from letting something go. I realised that I'm not alone, I've got the most amazing family, I've got a great group of friends around me and I've got a spirit that will never give up. I know most of these feelings are medicine based so I know they will go soon, just have to fight them for a few more days. I'm not telling you this to get sympathy, infact I hate sympathy. I'm telling you this because I want you to join me in this journey I'm on. You never know, anything can happen to anyone so at least you will know what to expect and what that person might end up going through too. I've never been through anything like this, it's all new to me, I've been tested like nothing before. This is harder than stepping onto the mat, into a ring or cage, this the hardest fight of my life, but the difference is, this time I have an army behind me. "Never Alone" has always been a saying for me in hard times. I'm not alone, never was and never will be, mentally, physically and spiritually. 

When was the last time you went and just sat in the sun or listened to the birds? When was the last time you took 5 minutes just to be with nature and just realise how small and precious we really are? I'm so grateful for everyone's support, it means more than you know. Love you all a lot. Thank you. I will prove those doctors wrong when it's time, just wait and see. Thanks again and hope you enjoyed the blogage. Peace. 

Stu x