Some good news and some bad news

Ok, we will start with the good news first, the UKS cybercrop was a great success and everyone seemed to enjoy the class and the entries were fab.  So much so that at some point I am going to redo the class using some of the things I picked up from other people's pages, that I would never have thought of.  The other classes and challenges were also really good and some were just outstanding.  There are certainly a lot of very talented people over on UKS.  I did get a couple of classes done including the following page I made with the mystery kit.

The contents were way out of my comfort zone and I really didn't use very much of what I received as a result.  I am not sure I would buy a similar kit again, in fact this was my first ever mystery kit purchase.  I think it will depend on how busy life is the next time.  I also managed a digi challenge using a template, my first digi page in ages as I am still sorting through the huge amount of stuff I have accumulated over time. 

Anyway, now for news about the leg.  It is my leg but due to the months and months of problems I have had with it it has become 'the leg' as though it was a separate entity, something not quite belonging to me.  When I saw the consultant at the hospital I was told it was lymphoedema, there was no cure and I was to wear surgical stockings and lead a normal life.  That was it.  The first thing I did when I came home was to read as much as I could about the condition while the medics made the arrangements that were needed re stockings etc.  If you are reading this and are easily grossed out then don't google lymphoedema, as the images you may well end up with are far from pretty.

Luckily I was still seeing the fantastic nurse at my local health centre as I still needed regular dressing changes after my op.  She knew about lymphoedema and also knew that there was a specialist nurse nearby so she organised a referral to him.  It then took about 4 weeks for the letter to get from the hospital to the health centre, a distance of less than 3 miles!  In the meantime I was wearing 2 different sized crocs and a stretch bandage while I waited to be seen at the lymphoedema clinic.  The pain in my foot and ankle got increasingly worse and my mobility got less and less.  

I finally got my appointment at the clinic last week and the good news was that I didn't need weeks of compression bandages on my leg as the lymphoedema isn't that bad.  This meant that the very funky kerrapod shoe that had been delivered for me to wear while I was bandaged was no longer needed, which was great as it was quite uncomfortable to wear.

The bad news was that I had primary lymphoedema in both of my legs!  I really hadn't expected that and to make matters worse in my left leg aka 'the leg' the lymphoedema was up to the top of my knee, not simply in my foot and calf as I had thought.  It was a bit of a blow and is taking a bit of adjusting to not least as I know have to wear a full length compression stocking on my left leg and a knee length one on my right.  I also have an ankle wrap to put on 'the leg' in the evenings, which is like a huge strip of super strength elastic that gets wrapped tight around it to continue to reduce the swelling.  

In the last piece of good news I should be able to wear my normal shoes, on both feet, in a few weeks.  Getting the stocking on and off is fun due to the tightness but I have found that rubber gloves help, that and something akin to an extended shoe horn for getting them off, which is the hardest part.  I will spare you pictures of that, mainly because I have never been brave enough to take any yet :-)  For now it's best foot forward, which is currently the right one.  Take care x x x

Not quite habit forming

Ok, so this back to blogging thing isn't coming as easily as I would like it to.  It is far from a habit and something I need to tackle.  I think part of it is because I am not sure how I want things to go, do I want this to be a private space for only me or do I want to share things with others.  At the moment I am totally undecided, nothing like sitting on the fence, eh?

I am kind of swinging more towards the sharing thing as I know that helps motivate me but some of the crap I am facing in the future might not be for public consumption but may well need a forum, a space, just to let it out.  This is only one of a few quandaries I am facing so I will just have to keep going with the status quo for now and see what the next few weeks bring.

For now I am back into my scrapping - I have really missed it so much over the past months.  The cyber crop over at UKS has helped and there are some great classes on offer.  Some I love more than others, one or two that are just not me but I may try and adapt them.  I am delighted that the class I was asked to do has been well received because it is always a worry that no one will like it or do it, which would be especially sad as it is one of my current faves.  Here it is.

I have also made the following pages which were pre crop classes.

Now all I need to do is settle myself down to some of the other classes as some of them are fab!  Part of the problem is that I have recently, as in the past 2 days, regained some of my mobility.  I am driving again!  For the first time since very early September.  Some days my foot and ankle are just too sore, but other days I can manage very short journeys, as long as I have my bandage on and comfortable shoes.  How this will all pan out in the months ahead, I simply don't know.  I am going to try and get some more advice this week and then make a decision re returning to work.  I hate the not knowing, it is so frustrating.

I thought that was it but it isn't quite

I have missed blogging, not because of any great need to share what I create, but for me, as a reminder of the minutiae of my life.  In fact sharing what I create is what stops me blogging most days, it is that unspoken pressure to have something to share, that keeps me away.

Back in January I started doing a Project Life album for this year.  Knowing my track record of never quite finishing things I went ahead and was doing fine until about May/June when things just got too busy and I stopped.  I felt it was taking all my scrapping tie and I got bogged down.  Since then I have barely scrapped - not layouts, not project life, not anything and it is awful!

In April I banged my shin with a chair in school.  It was extremely painful but the skin didn't break.  Since then I have had one problem after another with the leg in question, mostly to do with it being considerably larger than the other leg.  I have had x-rays and scans and all sorts of tests.  I have had injections in my stomach for days on end and blood tests upon blood tests yet no answers to what is actually wrong.  I have bought many different pairs of shoes trying to get a pair that would fir both legs at the same time but I have also had to send so many pairs back as they just didn't fit at all.

In September I developed an infection in my leg, cellulitis, which resulted in a 9 day hospital stay, gallons of antibiotics delivered by drip and eventually surgery.  For a while I had two legs that almost matched, sadly that didn't last.  My leg is still healing but is almost there but it is, yet again, bigger than my other leg.  Not hugely, just enough to make wearing shoes a problem.  Unless it is raining I don't wear shoes and travel everywhere in my cute slippers.  When it is raining I have to decide whether to wear shoes and remove the support bandage or to get wet.  Until now.

On Monday I saw a consultant who told me I have lymphoedema in my left leg and that there is no cure.  I will need to be fitted for a surgical compression stocking and will have to wear it all day, every day.  I left  the hospital in a confused state, came home and googled lymphoedema.  In some ways I am so glad I did and in others I wish I hadn't.  The information and support forums I found are great, the photos are not.

Today I was back at my own health centre to see the nurse who has been looking after me post op and changing my dressings.  She wasn't surprised about the diagnosis, in fact she said she thought that was what it was but didn't want to say.  She has arranged one further test next week before we get into measuring me up for my unsexy stockings.  She has been brilliant!

I am still off work as most days any form of movement is sore and walking for more than 20 minutes leaves me exhausted.  It is not the wound, it is the swelling in my leg, and the constant pain and ache.  I need to take pain killers to be able to sleep, and often just as a matter of course to get through the day.  Sitting with my leg elevated higher than my hip is the only time it isn't too sore and it is driving me nuts!  I am now keeping a diary to see when it is less sore and less swollen and when it is worse to see if there is a pattern.

This has triggered my urge to get back on track with my project life album, to document the origin of this new phase in my life and how I deal with it.  Hopefully this will also trigger my love of scrapbooking and get me back on track a bit.  I need the relaxation that I get from playing with paper and I need to get the memories documented.