6th October 2015. Did I mention my poorly arm?

It's been about 9 weeks now since a rather innocuous bump on the football pitch left me heading to hospital because my arm felt rather painful.

An X-ray a or two and 4 1/2 hrs later I was on my way back home feeling a bit sorry for myself but pleased it was "just a bump" but warned that it could take 6 weeks to recover as it was likely to be damaged tendons. 

So I took a few days off - I was on leave from work anyhow so no problem. After a week I was still struggling so I trundled off to the docs for a further assessment. She signed me off for two weeks but was happy for me to do "light duties" i.e. sitting at home tinkering with a mouse and keyboard, pouring over planning applications and aerial photographs.  All well and good but, by eck my arm was still really achy. 

Another trip to the surgery for a consultation and it was decided that I'd need an MRI or an ultrasound scan to see what was really going on. But don't even think about working at all for the next two weeks!

I was hoping to be scanned within a few days of my doctor firing off the request but I am still waiting. 

On my most recent trip to the Aldborough  Practice, my doc decides that enough is enough. She has diagnosed a rotator cuff tendon injury, signed me off work for the whole of October, tried to get an early appointment with a specialist and confirmed a scan date for next week.

I'm guessing that, hopefully, the scan will confirm her diagnosis and I will get to see a surgeon before too long. My arm  constantly feels as if it has just taken a hefty thump. By night I really struggle to get comfy and spend a few hours each evening/early morning listening to rubbish radio and communing with the wider world through the power of the internet. I've never spent more time away from work in my adult life. I can't help but feel guilty as I am not ill in the truest sense and my injury seemed so innocuous, but then I get a shooting pain across my shoulder and stifle a yelp.

I guess I can call it a career break but that is of little comfort to my soreness and more importantly of no use to the boys and girls having to cover my work. The work is being done without question and without judgement which is brilliant to know. It's just the way I'd have done it in a reverse situation - take up the baton etc. 

Trouble is, I have no idea when I will be back on the team.  I've been spending my days (the weather has been fantastic to date) walking the highways and byways of North Norfolk and trying (and failing) to catch up on missed sleep. I've not been able to go running, biking, fishing or swimming  - all my favourite things to do when the weather is good enough. Can't see me playing football again for a long long time either.

I'm expecting the next few weeks to be a mixture of highs and lows but above all I want things sorted so as I can have a good nights sleep again.

 

A retun to normality, what I was going to write......

September

For the last 10-15 yrs that has meant a return to school, the end of the holidays, nights drawing in, fewer days off work, no more sea swimming, football, fires and knuckling down to hard work
But
Things are about to change in Bessingham Towers. Jenny has far exceeded what she/we had hoped she may have been able to achieve in her school years. It was no fluke though. I've watched with immense pride how dammed hard she has worked all through her latter years and she got exactly what she deserved.
This leads to Leeds. With offers from some of the best universities in the world, she has made her choice and followed her heart to what she had always wanted - Uni life in a big cosmopolitan city with lots going on. The course will be challenging, rewarding interesting and mon dieu! we wish her well.
It will leave a vacuum in our home life which I will find hard to cope with. To have had the privilege to have been her old dad and watch her life develop to where she has arrived to today has been just the best thing.
Above all, she is ready for this. The next few days will be tough but before you know it, we'll have a future Prime Minister on our hands
All this has pushed young Rosie up the pecking order - not least in that she is know the holder of Jen's season ticket at Carrow Road. Rosie went back to yr 8 at Sheringham High School this morning. What a difference to the 1st day of term this time last year. If she can take any one thing from where Jenny has got to now it would have to be that hard work reaps reward. No doubt she will work out a scam to get round the hard work bit - but she is really looking forwards to this school year. Her sister tells her that year 8 is probably the best school year of all.
So for Rosie and DG, things are getting back to routine I guess. DG has a new intake of yr3 children to nurture though and no doubt will have the weight of the school on her shoulders again before too long. She seems better able to balance work/home life nowadays - now that she is a semi-pro runner. I dare say she'll be racking up even more miles when she only has one child at home to look after (well 2 if you include me). Actually I must have been a right pain in the arse to look after through the holidays and on into September. A rather innocuous  bump while playing football has led to a month or more not being able to drive. Arm tendon damage never seemed so debilitating but, truth be told, I'm a bit fed up with things now. I'm confined to barracks, ploughing through work while sitting in front of a monitor and keyboard. I know that's what a large percentage of the working population do, but for a long time now I've been out and about, filling my lungs with fresh air, having a wander and enjoying the Norfolk countryside. I've actually been doing my survey job for 30 years now, as of yesterday. There were no fanfares, no gold watches, no envelopes stuffed full of cash. A simple letter from the guvnor saying cheers mate was all I was deemed to be worthy of. Maybe he has a point right now.
So my start to September is not usual at all. I can't wait to get out on a bike again or take up a set of golf clubs or a fishing rod, but that may have to wait till next spring now. Hopefully I'll be ok to drive soon - at least I can go and have a paddle then, but in the meantime I'll have to rely on Mrs H.

What price a return to normality?

But what is normality and is it achievable?

And anyhow, things are far from "normal" just now

Globally it would appear that a picture is worth a billion words. Poor bastards getting away from awful things going on in Syria/Libya. Seems a 50% chance of survival in a dinghy is a better bet than staying home and trying to defend their very lives. My hope is that the world will face up to this crisis, not least my government. I've usually looked at it with a view that if folk aren't getting along, they should sit down with each other and have a nice cup of tea and a chat, or maybe a game of cricket but for now a lot of people need a lot of refuge AND we can all help. The xenophobes and scare mongers that say three's no money here and that we're full need to have things better explained to them. Listening to my local radio these last few days has been awful. I've lost count of the times I've heard the phrase "I'm not racist but....." Apparently the island of Britain will sink if any more of "them" come here.

Who knows, maybe when these people are back on their feet and we are helping their homelands rebuild into my desire for things to be normal, maybe they'll go home, which is where I guess they'd all like to live happily ever after.