Thursday, June 28, 2007

Company Cloak and Dagger

Ah I was begining to think since I've come back that I've been working for a different company

It was a case of loads of people I don't recognise and loads of stuff happening that I've no idea whats going on. It all looked quite business like.

Well the old Company reappeared this morning. Gordon said that Richard was planning on switching me to a different project next Monday, today being Thursday. This is the first I've heard about it, Gordon wasn't allow to tell me, although its clear he has been dropping hints for most of the week now.
On the other hand noone told my current manager or team leader who had rather assummed I'd be working for them and had planned accordingly.

I figure I'll carry on working for my current project and ignore this until I get more conformation.

The new project would be my first official team lead at the Company, which being at the planning stage means I'm wouldn't actually be in charge of any developers straight away.

Stress

Ok so there it was all going a bit too smoothly

The new consultant is what's call capped by AXAPPP with basically means the insurance thinks he charges too much and will only pay what they think is right.


Also the hospital seems to have got mixed up and booked me another appointment with Kitson when they were meant to book one with Mr Parmar.

Looks like the appointment is ok for next thursday. I guess the hospital where just having problems with there computer.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

A waiting for the train

This morning while I was standing on the platform at Watton station waiting for my train into London, something quite unusual happened.

It was a lovely sunny morning, one where the heat from the sun, nicely balances the cooling of the wind. The bird were singing all around and now and then there was the sound of a car going down station road. The sky was the sort of blue and cloudy like you see at the start of the Simpsons and in the middle of it was a red and white plane doing acrobatics!

It did some loops and barrel rows, a couple stall climbs and some quarter turns before flying off to the north.

A pretty cool thing to watch for five minutes before the train arrived

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Goodbye Mr Kitson

I had my meet with the consulant to check my progress and talk about the next lot of surgery. It didn't quite work as planned and I we didn't fix a date for the next surgery.

He filled me in on what happened in the surgery and said I would need my ACL replaced. I got some nice(?) pictures of the inside of my knee. However he doesn't do the type of acl replacement that I need, because I'm sporty (I told him about the ski instructor course) I should have the ACL replaced with a section of my hamstring.

So I'm being refered on to Mr Parmar who is the man for this sort of thing.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Back to work - It's got that new smell

It was a bit like the first day at a new school. Now my company has moved into its new offices, I return to work at the new location. I had no idea where anything or anyone was in the office, when I walked in. I didn't even know where my desk would be.

Fortunately it turns out its in quite a good location. the office is shaped like a giant L and I'm situated at the bend so I'm in a good position to know what's going on. Of course its not so good for surfing the web and not working, as my screens can be seen quite easily.

my coworkers have mostly been in the office a week now and the large part of the problems have been sorted out. A few servers are still not on line and a couple of the rooms are not quite ready yet but I'm sure it won't be long.

However, and I should have seen this coming, there is one thing that has gone wrong and they haven't been able yet to sort out what's happened. The storage box which I packed all my stuff (and most of the rest of the energy team did too) has gone missing!

It's big, orange and has got my mug in it. So if you see it, tell me as I fancy a cup of tea!

Friday, June 15, 2007

Scars

Took off all the bits of bandages and steri strips yesterday (Thursday) and well they're a bit small.

With the way the knee feels, like I've badly twisted it, I was expecting something a little more impressive.

MyFirstKneeOp 011

Oh well, should be fine to go back to work next week, after two weeks off. I must remember to take my doctors note with me.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

The Operation, so how did it go?

Monday, my dad told me it would have been my Grandma Dunhill's 100th birthday

It was a lunchtime check in, they asked me what newspaper i wanted in the morning. A little odd I thought as I wasn't planning on staying that long.

A porter collected me and took me to my room (307), slightly cruelly for someone who has been told to fast, we had to walk past the dinning room.
It was a nice single room right at the quiet end of the hospital. A nurse checked me in asked me loads of questions and left me to change into a gown and a set string net knickers, nasty.

Someone popped in and asked me what food i would like later. I figured chicken soup as I was in hospital and some ham sandwiches.

At about 2pm the consultant (Mr Kitson) and the anesthetist (can't remember the name) visited. Kitson marked me on the leg with the same marker pens which we used to use to mark the frozen chickens when i was working at Salisburys. so I was happy that they would operation on the right one!

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I was then left to sit waiting watching daytime TV and reading some seriously boring stuff from work about doing testing. I was starting to go a little nuts when I was finally called at about 4:30 and started my long walk to the theatre. It was slow going and the doctors were wondering where I was so much so the anesthetist came looking for us!

I was told to lie down on a trolley and they put a needle in the hand without (I think) any pain (I was expecting this to be the most painful part of the whole experience) we talked about skiing and scuba dives for a bit while they injected some stuff in my hand until I passed out.

I woke up at 6:10 from having such a lovely dream

An hour and 40 minutes, this is a very long time for the op which I had been told would be about 30 minutes. Kitson came in and explained what happened to but of course catching me a bit away with the fairies so I didn't take much in. He said he didn't do anything to the cartilage, there was no damage and in the end he just cut away the ACL stump. So ACL was causing the pain and clicking.

So, although it took me while to realise, it this was great news. No cartilage damage which means less long term problems and I should get a good knee back once a new ACL is put in.

They wheeled we back to the room.

OK, the next parts are a bit confused (I was on drugs!!)

They brought me some food.

Said that i should stay in over night as it was getting a bit late and I should see the physio who had already gone home.

I rang home a couple of times to tell them how it went.

Got a bit sick eating chicken soup. So I asked for a shot of anti nausea stuff which went in my backside and was the thing that hurt the most of the whole visit.

Keep failing asleep eating my ham sandwiches.

Watching TV with the nurse coming in to take my blood pressure and rate on a regular basis.

Kept drinking the water and refusing the painkillers.

Remembered at some point that I had brought my pyaminas so didn't need to still be wearing the frankly quite scary gown and pants combo.

Phoned home to fix up being picked up the next morning (someone must have told me about checking out by 10am at that point).

Took some pics with my mobile

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Watched the Terminator and then when to sleep.

I woke up at 3:20 and 5:40 and then just before 7. That would have been my body clock thinking it was time for work. The nurse turned up shortly after to take my readings and give me some pills (painkiller). This was quickly followed by another nurse with an more pills (anti inflamatory), a lady with my breakfast (a vague memory of filling in a form about
what I wanted when I got my ham sandwiches) and a porter with my free newspaper.

So by 7:30 i was sitting up in bed with breakfast and a newspaper watching breakfast TV.
I did the sudoku and word puzzle to make sure my brain was more or less back working.

9:30ish the physio turned up and took me thru a similar set of exercises to ones I was given in Canada. The three exercises where;

with the leg flat try and push the back of the knee to touch the floor
with a towel rolled under the knee tense the thigh muscle, curl the foot up and then slowly lift the lower leg off the ground
with the leg flat and straight gently lift the heel 10cm off the ground

The result of these should be to get my leg straighter and build up the muscles a bit.
The physio also checked out how I was walking and told me off for using the walking stick in the wrong hand (it should be the opposite hand to the problem leg) and was kind enough to get a new rubber foot for the walking stick (called a ferrel) as I've worn the current one down
quite a bit.

So it was just left to the duty nurse to get me some drugs and leaflets to take home and to check me out. My dad had kindly taken some time off work to come a drive me back. he had a bit of fun trying to find my room and we hung out in the room until a porter with a wheelchair arrived to take me to the car.

The sun was shining unlike the cloudy day when I went in and all in all I think it was a very peasant way to get operated on.

Back to the House, Ivy was visiting and I think she was a bit impressed with my bandage.

Friday, June 01, 2007

bye bye office

A last chance to look at the fantastic view from the office and reflective how slightly dogeared the whole place looks. I've pack all my stuff in a crate with the number of my new desk on it.

No wait I don't have a new desk number because looking at the new seating plan the entire Energy development team is missing!

D'oh!

Sounds like an early echo of the bedlam to come next week.