Sunday 4 October 2015

A round up of events

It's now October. I was going to do several posts to fill in the blanks but I've decided to do a couple up until mid August. I'm having to refer to my day-to-day appointment diary to do it too!

Brains continued to improve, and continued with his course. He was to be given an appointment to have a fibreglass cast applied after a week. When it came to halfway through the week and we had not had a phone call with an appointment I called the Fracture Clinic. They had no record of an appointment! It was supposed to be at Kenepuru Fracture Clinic but in the end they saw him at Wellington Hospital Fracture Clinic on the Tuesday - 10 days after his surgery. I dropped him off and picked him up from Whitireia on the Wednesdays to Fridays when he attended course.

There were other things happening too as usual - Ma's usual 3 month check-up by the doctor she is under at the rest home. Ma is slowly declining, muscles giving up. Ma has been fed pureed food for a while now as she has lost the ability to chew. Sleeps a lot, most of the time in fact. It's sad to see someone who used to be so vibrant a shell of what they once were  :(  It is life though. We none of us know what may happen with our health.

Another appointment I was involved with was taking Chuckles to attend an appointment at Wellington Hospital. She has been having some symptoms . . . and needs investigation to find out what is going on. Out of respect for Chuckles' privacy that is all I'm saying for now. I need to ask permission before sharing anything more.

Tuesday 16th June Brains had the new cast applied. Fluoro pink . . . because he could. No rocker on the foot as he was still to be non-weight bearing.

Saturday morning of that week I woke up to a text that was sent around 1:00am. Usually I wake up when my phone goes off . . . not this time. Miss Lisa had skidded and fallen while walking her dogs . . . and broken her ankle in two places! She had actually lain for an hour till she attracted attention. So she was in a back-slab plaster and had to wait about a week for surgery. I popped out to see her fro a while in the afternoon. She was feeling pretty sore understandably.

The following weekend I had what to me is a day off! Boar dropped me in the city so I could go to a  Mad Skills course at Made on Marion. I've been sewing for years but I'm always keen to learn new things. I had a great day with lots of other folk. Always more fun when there are a few of you  :) 


Here's a picture of Miss Lisa and Brains, after Miss Lisa has had her surgery, a few days after, back-slab plaster in place. She was at the studio as she insisted on going over Locket's dances with her before the Hutt Valley Performing Arts Competitions on the weekend. Locket did well and was awarded Commended for both her Classical and Barefoot dances. It gets pretty tough once they get into the 14+ categories . . . there are a lot of talented dancers in her age group so to even get a placing is great  :D


A photo of Locket in her new barefoot costume. Her dance is to Pie Jesu by The Ten Tenors.

These comps were at the beginning of the school holidays and Brains had a week off as well so things were a bit quieter for a few days. The evenings too as there wasn't dance most nights of the week.


The second Friday of the holidays Brains was due to see the surgeon and have his cast removed. So we managed to get a photo of him and Miss Lisa in their casts. Miss Lisa posted it on the studio Facebook page along with the comment: "Dancers with real attitude . . . don't want to talk about lack of pointed toes xx"

So Friday July 17 Brains' fibreglass cast was removed. In the photo below he's sitting waiting to see the surgeon, after cast removal and X-rays. Thankfully the repair looked good.



For the next 6 weeks he had to wear a moon boot - which is in the photo below. It gives support but means that he can begin to weight bear on the leg. Strictly no dance, but we did get permission to start physiotherapy.


So the moon boot during the day, and take it off at night. Anyone who has ever been in a cast will know that the first thing you want to do when the cast comes off is to have a shower or bath! Because a limb in a cast gets sooooo itchy, smelly and feels just awful by the time the cast comes off.  ~X(

Before he got in a bath - no weight-bearing without a moon boot - I took a couple of photos. The difference in the two legs was quite marked!

Back view

Front view

You can really see the atrophy of the muscles in these views! I rang that afternoon to make an appointment for him to start physio the next week. The sooner he begins the better.

So the following week, after Brains had finished at Whitireia, I took him to Te Aro Physio, who among other things specialise in dance related injuries. They are the physios for the Royal New Zealand Ballet and so are able to design a physio programme designed to get a dancer back to performance level. The reason I wanted to get him to physio is that the directions from the hospital are often a bit vague . . . whereas the physio knows how much to do for the muscles to get back to normal. This first visit was to see where he was at and he had some massage to free up the muscles of the ankle a bit. Then an appointment was made for Brains to see Jason the following week who has worked with him before.

During this time there were visits from some of the grandchildren - Mr Magoo stayed for a few days. The first night I put him to bed I was sure I'd put everything out of reach. Nope, as these photos show!


The table was against the wall to the right of the photo. And the powder was on the table, plus nappies and wet wipes!


I managed to get the top sheet off, with Locket's help I got the pillow out too. Shook them off and changed the pillowcase, all the toys had a good shake outside and a wash the next day! I didn't want him breathing in the powder all night. Mr Magoo had pulled out every wet wipe, so Boar put them all back in the packet. We did it all without waking Mr Magoo . . . and moved everything further out of reach!

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