humpty dumpty sat on a wall.....

and as you all know from the nursery rhyme, he had a big fall and none of the kings horses nor the kings men could put humpty together again. Well  -  that sort of sums up how I have generally been feeling until the last week or so.

I left you all last on my way for an ultrasound. 3 new fractures were discovered but there was one key difference this time -  they were stress fractures and not traumatic ones (traumatic are incurred by sharp/ heavy impact such as a car accident/ severe fall etc). Now I say not traumatic -  the pain is still the same and the incapacitation, however this is a slightly positive if somewhat depressing situation! Through the course of repeated actions, such as various people hugging me goodbye -  the depressing bit that I can break so easily   (and not bear hugs I hasten to add!)  - it seems that this is enough to create stress on my ribs that are already, as humpty knew so well,  weak, and once cracked, somewhat impossible to prevent from crisis and further breakage!  It does mean apparently though that they might not take as long to heal. good news. 

So the grand count to date this year on broken ribs( or should I say the last 18 months) has been a record total now of 21 broken/ fractured ribs. Some rebroken, from previous incidents but overall a whopping 21! can I have an entry form for the guiness book of records please?

Following my ultrasound and a small incident involving Helen one of my girlfriends feinting in the ultrasound room whilst she escorted me, and then borrowing my bed for 5 mins to recover, I was back to recovery mode and pampering by all the nurses and my lovely visitors.

Following day I was carted off to Princess Grace Hospital (where the bone density scanner or dexa scanner is) and they zapped me again to see if things were worse, the same or not. I was told in no uncertain terms there was no point in this scan as there would be no improvement, and they wouldnt normally do this before 12 months after the previous. I had had to point out to my consutant that a) Im not a normal case ie 75 and b) I wanted to check that I was on the right track and that things werent still getting worse! He agreed and so off I went. Now, Im no pro but I had the print outs with me from my previous readings, and I managed to decifer from the new set that there had in fact been the smallest of improvements in my bone density. Frankly something of a miracle -  must be wangerama's gunge that Im taking of course!  This was later validated by Dr B! Anyway, it seems that my arms are fine a bit low but not bad and not likely to break if I fall. My hip is still pretty dreadful and the femeral head and neck which are the top of the thigh bones where it connects to the hip socket is pretty dire, but the rest of the pelvis and femor are very slightly better than 3 months ago -  yeay! Then on the spine they take 4 readings. basically from top of spine in 4 chunks down to where it meets the pelvis. L1 is at the top and L4 bottom. L1 and 2 have improved a bit -  yeay! L3 not great and L4 utterly horrendous readings.
SO what does this all mean? basically if I fall over I could easily break my hip like an old granny or my spine and be left in any number of unthinkable states, really doesnt bear thinking about. But it is slightly better and the baynon was gobsmacked. He thinks the chinese medicine will poison me and is a bunch of tripe.....but he would.......and hes now utterly convinced that, sadly for me, it is predominantly down to the rather ghastly contraceptive that I was on. (It turns out the world health org wanted to ban depo provera but realised that it was a great way of preventing too many births in 3rd world countries, so didnt and despite all the risks they continue to prescribe it. Frankly Im utterly shocked and will be considering some sort of national/ political rant to that effect when Im stronger! anyone want to join me, please do!???) I seem to be one of the incrediblly rare cases in the world that this can happen to and the numbers and probability is low, but still! they know the risks and still do nothing to stop it!

So, to continue. I left hospital on the Saturday morning and my dear brother managed to get me and my rather upset felix cat, still intact both, to my parents place in Suffolk for further Tlc. Louie (the cat) had a cat holiday chasing mice and hiding in bushes and shubbery for 10 days and didnt want to come back to london -  frankly I dont blame him, and I was tucked up in bed for r and r. I was also very lucky to get the indian summer weather, so I was also set up on the sun lounger in the garden for maximum vitamin d absortion! (and a nice autumn tan to go with)

Blood tests came back on Wednesday and were all pretty positive too. My horribly low Vit D deficiency it seems has been stabilised now to more normal levels, but I have to continue taking 20000 units a week for the forseeable future. (most daily vit pills have about 400/d just to put that in perspective!). the big news on all that though was that in fact my hormones are relatively normal, which is great news. there were a few anomalies, but apparently thats sort of normal!

All in all the tests have been a step in the right direction and I have to say that when I spoke to Dr B this Tuesday again in London, and he compared me to a cracked egg (hence the humpty reference) it seemed like a good way of explaining. Basically you lot are like a nice happy solid egg with no cracks -  the type we all check for in the egg carton, and Im one of the cracked ones that if you end up with one, you escort it home very carefully and then chuck it in a pan asap.........poor humpty! however it does seem that the kings horses and men seem to be making some progress in medical science since the rhyme was written and I actually, albeight VERY VERY slowly, might actually be able to glue my cracks back together again and be almost the same as the rest of the egg fraternity! funny how only a couple of months back I was banging on about having a double yolker! hmmmmm definite egg theme emerging here!

The tens machine has been my saviour and the endorphin rush you get from it is wonderful. that and the extra pain relief it gives. I was using on my ribs and my back and I tell you, for anyone who suffers nasty back pain or problems GO AND GET ONE. they are fabulous for back spasm, pain relieve, migraine, all sorts......

Im still on mega 'killers' but have reduced the tramadol a bit. Im moving about better, can carry a few things, can make myself food and stuff a bit better now, but I still get my good days and bad days and the one ever consistent thing that really hasnt changed is my insomnia......its currently 3am and Im wideawake club! ho hum.....had  yummy dinner cooked for me by nins and candi tonight though, and some green soup with every vit d vegie on the planet in it -  thanks Nina......Im gonna be popeye soon!

but the key thing is that my state of mind is more positive- these test results have given me a degree of hope that I can make good progress now and over time live a more normal life - whatever that may be, certainly not one involving extreme sports anymore, dancing on table tops in my ski boots or even going crazy on the dancefloor! Art, culture and golf seem to be the way forward! and you never heard that in the nurery rhyme did you.........POOOOOR HUMPTY.