I endorse everything positive about laughter.
My beliefs are that one 'should keep moving' ( the use it or lose it principal)...and try to laugh at something every day ( even if it is just at something daft you did).
I know that when you are really sick you just want to curl up somewhere and be alone, which is fine for a very short time, but then you must push yourself to get up and find something positive to do.
Movement, fresh air, and laughter. And good food choices. ( all much better than pills and potions)
My dads attitude, when he was alive. In later life he had both knees sorted and both hips replaced. When he went in for his first operation he made a point of asking for a job on the ward, (more like blagging his way in to pushing the tea trolley round from 6.30am each morning). He did this with all his operations as he said mobility and exercise was the key to a speedy recovery. So much so that with his second hip replacement he was discharged 2 days after the operation. drains out and wound healing OK. 10 days later he cycled from Barlick to Skipton (9 miles) for his first outpatients appointment, he was 72 at the time! Not only that he cycled back as well. Never give up was his motto, which held him in good stead right until the end of his days, those were the last words he said to me when on bedside vigil just before he died.
Gosh. I'd say your Dad was an outstanding example, Panny!
So long as his quick recovery was at his own pace, that is wonderful...because I think things can backfire if someone else pushes you to recover quicker than your body can handle it.
I couldn't stand the thought of having a permanently wonky arm after I broke it in four bits, and I did all kinds of exercises about ten times a day ( including pushing it up a wall inch by inch until it laid flat. That was painful to do, but if I did it slowly I got there.) pretty soon I could do loop the loops with it and circular movements such as washing windows. It behaves normally now, but it took a good six months.
Strangely, it still hurts if we go over big bumps in the car, such as spoon drains.
Can't imagine riding a bike that far so soon after surgery...
His surgeon thought so as well Maz. So much so that he had my dad riding his bike around the car park while he tipped all of the outpatients and staff out to watch him. This included the bloke he had given the same hip replacement operation on the same day as my dad but who had turned up to his first outpatients in a wheelchair. The surgeon announced to all that if John could ride a bike so well after 10 days, the least he could do was get up and attempt to walk.
Two years later in October, my dad was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. He was taken into hospital on Christmas Eve when he found that he could not get out of his chair as he had lost all function in his legs. Shortly afterwards he was slipping in and out of coma and as a result of being static in bed he developed a bacterial chest infection which eventually led to his death on the 3rd of January. Not a happy Christmas or New Year that time around. As I came away from the hospital in the early hours of the morning I thought about him doing figures of eight on his bike in the hospital car park at Skipton and wondered if that other bloke was still in his wheelchair.
How sad.
There is always something unexpected, waiting to ruin our day, isn't there? (and you have had your fair share)
Good news at our end today. Thursday's batch of blood tests show steady and positive improvement in hubby's health. He has been feeling and looking better these past couple of days which reflect that improvement.
Another couple of days at this rate and I would say he is winning the battle...
That's triggered memories off! I agree with your sermon Maz and the exercise you did crawling your hand up the wall was exactly what my dad was told to do over fifty years ago when he badly dislocated his shoulder.
Ian, your story about the registrar showing his other patients your dad riding his bike reminds me of when I was going for weekly physiotherapy after smashing my shoulder in 1972. I'd been told it was doubtful if I'd ever be able to raise my right arm over my head again and didn't like the sound of that! I happened to be talking to our milkman Fred Smith and he told me to thread a piece of cord through the ham hook in the ceiling beam in the kitchen and use my good arm to pull the bad one up as far as I could. That was interesting, the first time I did it I wet myself! But I persevered and after about three weeks when the surgeon asked me what movement I had in the arm I pulled my comb out and combed my hair with the right arm. He got the patient in from next door who had had virtually the same break as I had at the same time and berated him for not doing as well as me! I felt awful but I admit, smug! Even to this day I can reach further with my right arm than my left. Amazing what you can do if you can motivate yourself.
The last time I had a break was my right wrist, about five broken bones. I was in America at the time (2000) and by chance, one of my mates who was a GP had exactly the same break the day after he looked at mine and played hell with me because I refused to have it X-rayed or have a cast but carried on scraping paint on Martha's house with it tightly strapped up. About five weeks later as I was preparing to leave he called in and we compared movement in the hand. He could just about touch his thumb with a finger and I had full mobility. He said it had completely changed his view about immobilising fractures any longer than necessary. There's a process in healing called 'Constructive Stress' which encourages ossification if the broken bits are rubbing against each other, feels like masochism at the time but Mother Nature has her own ways of helping us. Funnily enough this is the reason why it's a good thing to move the stems of plants about in a greenhouse as it mimics wind movement and is essential for the full health of plants.
(End of another sermon Maz!)
Just after I finished this I realised my ear ring was itching a bit so I went for another old favourite. I got the TCP out and threaded some cotton soaked in it through the hole in my ear. That'll cure it!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
I would never push the pain thing so far that I 'wet meself' , Stanley!
But I remember the radiologist had to raise the broken one to X-ray it and before I let him do what he had to do I remember stressing he was NOT to just drop it from a great height once he had got his picture! (trust me...he would have been singing soprano for a month if he had dropped it)
They say another good thing to do with hand/arm injuries is to place a mirror BETWEEN the two, with the mirror facing the good hand. Now exercise both hands in unison but only look at the image of your good hand. It has been proven that you can do more with the injured hand than you think you can, and they say that exercising them in unison reduces the pain because you only see the healthy one.
Magic.
Maz, the mirror trick also imposes the feelings of your `good' hand on the `bad'. If someone pricked your good hand with a pin while you were looking at the reflected image you'd probably feel a pin prick in your bad hand too.
Nullius in verba: On the word of no one (Motto of the Royal Society)
I like the mirror idea. I once saw a photograph of an African gentleman having a 'shave' by the barber pulling the hair out in small clumps. Whilst he was doing this a small boy sat at the side of the man and hit his hand which was laid on a flat rock with a small stone. The idea was that the 'sympathetic pain' cancelled out the pain of the hair being pulled out.
I soon learned to keep the pain level within bounds Maz, I was a bit too enthusiastic with the first pull!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
Good! My best wishes to her. They reported a 50% improvement. I'm so impressed by Angelina Jolie in going public about her pre-emptive mastectomy. Many years ago my freind John Pudney wrote about his throat cancer. He said the biggest enemy was fear and more people should go public. See 'Thank Goodness for Cake' published in 1978 and 'Nil by Mouth', an article in the Guardian in the same year.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
Just a personal observation in relation to A.J.
I don't understand how a person so aware of health issues has such a blind spot when it comes to tattoos and silicone in the lips....
I think Angelina was very brave. I also read an article by a doctor who also prempted breast cancer who having had a double mastectomy, also had a hysterectomy as that is the next port of call according to her. She then found that she had pancreatic cancer for which there was no cure so in her case it proved futile.
When I was diagnosed with bowel cancer I didn't want anyone to know as it's very personal. I have been told I am clear and have been for 10 years. I had 7 and a half months of chemo as a precaution after the op belt and braces was how it was described but then no medication. A locum found mine through anemia my own doctor had prescribed iron tablets. Most of the unsuccessful patients were men who hadn't gone for treatment sooner. Eileen
Marilyn wrote:Just a personal observation in relation to A.J. I don't understand how a person so aware of health issues has such a blind spot when it comes to tattoos and silicone in the lips.
I guess it boils down to the priorities the individual sets, Maz. Look at sunbathing - excessive sunbathing causes skin cancer but young people in the UK are going back to the bad old way of lying in the sun without cream and not wearing hats, sleeves and so on. They are desperate to get a tan, thanks to TV, films and magazines. The cancer warnings have little effect in the face of advertising pressure from the media.
Nullius in verba: On the word of no one (Motto of the Royal Society)
I used to be as guilty as any of today's young as you can see from the colour I was in 1981 on Catalina Island. Father always said there was some aborigine bllod somwhere in the mix and I believe it! I always felt better if I was brown, nowadays I couldn't care less. Luckily, so far, I don't seem to have suffered any ill effects. (Famous last words?)
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
I used to spend the summer coated in calamine when I was a child as a blond pale skin. Didn't manage a tan until I went to stay with my brother in South Africa and by being able to tan slowly instead of the rushed 2 weeks as most people try to do the tan came and now only needs touching up but always with cream if I am sat out reading. When in Australia I remember being on a beach in Perth and they came round and sprayed you with sun tan cream for a price and most wear hats. My friend's (an Australian) family have a history of skin cancer but she still sunbathes. Always feel better for having a tan, Dave only has to look at it and he goes a dark tobacco colour. I think everything in moderation and you can't go wrong. Eileen
I have some kind of throaty, nasal, coughing thing going on at the moment. Very sore throat last night on swallowing, not much sleep. No infection on tonsils so probably some strain of virus going on. Probably got it from one of the grandchildren who seem to be walking talking miniature Typhoid Mary's some times. Don't feel Ill and throat now only sore when I cough. My voice had gone completely this morning but has now returned about three octaves lower than normal. I could probably give Boris Karlof or Barry White a run for their money at the moment!
Funny how long it takes you to realise that there has been a change in your health sometimes. You may remember the massive dose of Flu my daughter Susan and I picked up from her husband Mick on December 22 2011, he works as a carer in a children's home and no doubt picked it up there. Apart from the peripheral consequences to my back etc. I noticed that 6 months after I was still wheezing when I breathed. Over the last few weeks I have noted that this has completely gone now, my chest is clear as a bell. It has taken almost a year for that consequence to go away. I've always said that Flu is a very serious matter and this tends to support the3 view. What's cured it? All I can surmise is that it's a generally good immune system bolstered by good food and sensible exercise. Whatever, I'm grateful!
Not strictly a medical matter but I was surprised how over an hour cleaning up in the shed yesterday tired me! Must have some muscles that need honing again.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
Stanley wrote:It has taken almost a year for that consequence to go away.
Sometimes the consequences never go away. I'm convinced that ageing happens in steps rather than the gradual change that people usually expect, with the steps being marked out by major illnesses or stressful events. The solution is to try to avoid both of these but it's not always easy!
Nullius in verba: On the word of no one (Motto of the Royal Society)
I agree a lot with your last post Tizer. With my own experiences, I often find myself thinking 'until so and so happened to me, I was fine', 'since so and so happened to me I can no longer do certain things'. And yes even tho the main problems mainly heal themselves, there is always something left behind to remind you of what happened and to adjust your way of doing things and be careful in the future.
I know I'm in my own little world, but it's OK... they know me here.
I only visit the doctor on rare occasions, so when I saw that the Co op chemists were offering health checks in Colne Library yesterday I jumped at the opportunity. Blood pressure fine, heart rate below average and (thanks to recent weight loss) not overweight...what did upset me was that I seem to have shrunk by an inch! It must be all the heavy feed bags I have to carry...or is it from sitting hunched over the computer for too long every day.
Carrying heavy bags Wendy... I'm sure thats what started my problems many years ago, be careful. Think about how your muscles are being stretched and held like that for a long time... not good, not good at all.
I know I'm in my own little world, but it's OK... they know me here.
)
