Leg Trouble and Playing 45s

27 August 2025. I'm still having bother with the legs. One leg itching like mad and the other leg so sore it's driving *me* mad... the wound on my right leg still looks grotty covering most of one side of my lower leg and still oozing a bit. it can be VERY painful.

1 September 2025. Painful visit to the District Nurses today, though I still think the legs are improving. Limping about manfully. I've done this crayon sketch over the last two days. Just one single lonesome page left blank in the A4 sketch book waiting for me to make my mind up whether to do a sketch or whether to add some details of who I am, what I do, why I do it, how sorry I am for doing it and a half-hearted doomed-to-be-broken promise not to do it again... The village shown is a place called Skradin in Croatia, at the end of a boat trip from the Krka National Park.

4 September 2025. The other day on Facebook I mentioned I was looking for a new record player. Yesterday we took a bus ride to Lytham to a place that renovates old players of a certain type. I invited my Facebook friends to guess what I bought - a Dansette was the most common response.

I did used to have a collection of such players, though sadly none of them actually bore the name "Dansette". Pictured here, the small suitcase Handy Gram went to the tip shortly after one of the cats we had at the time jumped on top of Max Bygraves and started spinning at 78 rpm. Max withstood this rather well but the fool cat broke the playing arm completely off... The rather posh Magnavox (top left) was sold after someone made me an offer I couldn't really refuse and the one top right at some point refused to work. I still have a Bush 1970s record player but it sounds somewhat naff and I wanted something with a better sound.

My Facebook friends now became fixated with brand names such as Bush, Ferguson, Bang & Olufsen, Aiwa, Panasonic etc. whilst one suggested that Tony Blackburn might be moving in...

9 September 2025. Well, today I had the legs redressed. 3.30pm but already the bandages are stained and the pain is lancing through my leg, making it impossible to settle for sleep.

The new record playing machine is due to be delivered tomorrow. Fingers are crossed and 275 45rpm records from the 1960s ready to be played. Final clue then: I asked for the type but everyone fixated on brands. So today's clue is designed to make you think of the brand... which may enable you to think of the type!

It was made by the firm responsible for a musical instrument famous for its association with Blackpool Tower. Once it's delivered I'll let the cat out of the bag. I'll be checking to see if anyone comes up with it first...

Well two people eventually got it. One person with a somewhat unrealistic idea of just how big my house is, suggested a Wurlitzer pipe organ... The clue prompted suggestions of a Gibson turntable - er... they make guitars I think! Also my use of the word retro in an earlier post made someone think of a wind-up gramophone... But one or two made the right connections.

10 September 2025. It's here, it's loaded and working and there's BUBBLES! Getting it over the threshold was not the easiest thing. The delivery man was on his own and it took both Fran and myself to help get it in, but in the end we managed.

20 September 2025. Sigh, yesterday it looked like a setback for my left leg which had been doing nicely. Still not sleeping well. I did manage to drop off watching TV today. Trouble was, I had a mug full of coffee in my hand at the time. My bandages are stained again...

23 September 2025. Had legs done again this morning - they have been a bit raw and yowchy (well if Shakespeare can make up words, so can I) but on the whole getting better. Looks like I'll be back in compression on Friday...

27 September 2025. Legs back in compression after yesterday's visit to the District Nurses. Horrendously painful whilst I get used to them again. Gasping and filling the night air with (mild) expletives. Managed a couple of hours sleep in the early hours then heard a crash from the bathroom. Somehow my shaving mirror had fallen off its extendable arm and was in shards on the stone floor. Oh good, like I need another seven years of bad luck...!

Cancer and Leg Ulcers Index

Managing The Legs, August 2025

5 August 2025. Just back from another excursion to the District Nurses. My usual nurse wasn't there again today but I'd seen the stand-in before and she was good at what she did.

I actually came out feeling less in pain than usual, though it's kicking in now as the painkillers I always take before an appointment are wearing off now.

Plus I managed to show her something she had never seen before when she asked to check my bum for sores... I did warn her beforehand and she reacted with a look of surprise and 'Well I've never seen that before, you learn something every day...' Oh alright, enough of the teasing... I told her about the fractures to the bottom of my spine which now have my tailbone do a bit of a jig to the right... It is not comfortable and not recommended as a fashion item.

11 August 2025. I am just getting to the stage where I want to get out of the house every now and then. Each time is a trial as yet. Still a lot of pain in the legs despite all the paracetamol, gabapentin nerve painkillers and morphine (I am currently on 33 medications per day). Walking onto a slope, whether an actual gradient of the ground, an uneven pavement or a slope because I'm passing a driveway, is an issue as trying to adjust my balance sends pains shooting up from ankles to calves ("What's that bloke doing riding that small cow on my driveway?")

Otherwise the legs are improving. Fewer and smaller wounds, but the main problem is the availability of bandages and dressings. Despite numerous orders going to the wholesale pharmacy by the District Nurses, we have received exactly nothing since I came out of hospital. By all accounts neither have the District Nurses. Every time I go to have my legs redressed they have to go filching supplies from other rooms, nurses or surgeries. Sometimes it's a case of make do with whatever they have got. This is obviously some sort of breakdown quite high up in the supply chain.

I'm managing to sleep with my legs raised in bed a bit better than previously. This does mean several trips to the loo during the night though but the good side of that is that my legs are more or less normal sized instead of swollen and solid all the way to my neck... I've still been wearing shorts in the house for comfort though I did try a pair of normal trousers the other day, gave a squawk of surprise and had to order some new ones in a smaller size. That's all good and well, but I'm sure I've shrunk in height as well as getting rid of waste er... I mean waist...

Still takes me ages most nights to get to sleep and as a consequence I drop off far too easily during the day, making it harder to get to sleep at night making it easier to drop off...

So standing and walking are still painful and pressure on my right leg for any length of time particularly first thing in the morning after I've had my legs horizontal can start the remaining wounds bleeding which can be excruciating. Sitting and lying on my back are not always pain free either because of both pressure on my calves when lying and on my bent and sticky-out tailbone when lying or sitting. When I say sticky-out I don't mean I appear to have a tail, but it's a bit more prominent under the skin than it would normally be.

Hoping to try a bus ride into Poulton this week. I need to sort out the new glasses I ordered just before going into hospital which when I got them were superb for one eye but didn't allow me to focus the other eye properly at all.

12 August 2025. Had a doppler test at the District Nurses yesterday - that's a bit like having a blood pressure test except the inflatable collar goes over the wounds on your legs and is tightened until you are just about to scream. Then a microphone is pressed to your leg above and the noise of blood trying to get through the restricted veins is measured in some way and a calculation then is performed which in my case said I couldn't have compression bandages...

I have very slight compression from the ordinary bandages but the upshot is that swinging legs out of bed in the morning feels very similar to being in hospital when I used to gush blood all over the place. Luckily that didn't happen but I'm hobbling more again and waiting for a second test to confirm either yes or no for the compression bandages or whether I need referring to the hospital vascular team again. Joy...

The lack of a few layers also meant that lying down last night was more painful and kept me awake quite a bit and I've spent most of the day so far trapping my nose in the middle of my book as I doze off and lean/fall forwards...

18 August 2025. Was waiting for this to happen - since they decided I couldn't have compression bandages on, I am now sporting a stain on the bandages over the back of one leg the size of a 50p piece showing where one of the few wounds remaining has split and started weeping again. Blooming painful too. And at 3:00am this morning woke up and the wobbly tombstone tooth that has been annoying me for a few weeks came out and made me play hide and seek for it with my tongue before I could get it out of my mouth... District Nurses appointment just after lunch, hoping it will be my usual nurse who we haven't seen for a couple of weeks.

23 August 2025. Finally! After almost two months of orders and reminders being sent by the District Nurses, yesterday the pharmacy delivered this lot... including the bag on the floor with more bandages but not the carpet sweepers or the bit of finger top left...

Since they stopped the compression bandages I have been very sore and at times leaky. Had a couple of outings though this week to Blackpool and Poulton to sort out various bits. Hoping to get new glasses back today with decent lenses for both eyes! Stand by for fully descriptive posts of everything I can see. Gosh Miss Franny - is that what you look like?

Cancer and Leg Ulcers Index

Health Updates January 2025

Sunday 5 January 2025. We have our annual visit of snow showers. We never get very much in the way of snow as we live too close to the sea, just outside Blackpool, so there's plenty of salt in the air. Just every now and then though...

Thursday 9 January 2025. Another in the occasional series "If it's going to happen it'll be at the worst time and in the worst way"...

So a bit of background. I take painkillers for the leg 4 times a day, 9:00am 3:00pm, 9:00pm, 3:00am. In order to facilitate the 3:00am one either my internal clock or pain wakens me somewhere around the right time. I leave the bedroom lamp on so I don't start having to grope about for stuff. All went well last night, until around 3:20 the call of nature got me painfully out of bed, with aid of walking stick and leaning on various items of furniture and walls to accomplish what needed to be accomplished.

Came back to bed reached out to deposit walking stick in its resting place between bed and chest of drawers. Crook of walking stick dips into glass of water still 1/2 full and knocks it over emptying contents over bed, pillows, floor, the double plug socket feeding the lamp and alarm clock...

I yelp. Miss Franny sits up fearful that I have hurt myself. We find that top of my bed and pillows are soaked through and have to find something else to lie against whilst after a brief and largely unsuccessful bout of mopping and towelling fails to dry bed.

A fresh towel is laid on top of wet bit of bed (hence the somewhat dimpled botty on getting up this morning... [photo sadly unavailable]) I spend the rest of the night sitting up in one of those reading pillows - we call it "Big Ted" as it's like sitting between the legs of a large teddy bear.

Manage to get to sleep sometime between 4:00-4:30am having unplugged all the electrics and set alarm on phone which thankfully managed to escape a drenching. Another day (or night) in the life... Sorry Miss Franny - did I mention she's an angel?

Wednesday 15 January 2025. Well, after my weekly visit to the District Nurses yesterday I now have both legs under compression, leading to a rather troubled night's sleep last night. Nurse pronounced herself pleased at the condition of my left leg (the one with the ulcer on the back). She pulled off a huge piece of dead skin - very painful, but needed doing. It was around 1/8 inch thick and 3 x 2 inches and so had to be torn off slowly bit by bit whilst I held my breath and tried to blank out the world. I was shaking by the time she stopped. She was going to leave the last 1/4 of an inch and cut across the 2 inch loose flap but I just said to pull it off.

For the sake of another two seconds it wasn't worth leaving any dead skin on. She said I was her only patient in pain that didn't complain. I'm not sure that complaining about it would achieve anything though. Whilst having all the dead skin off would definitely help it start to recover. So now doddering about with both legs giving me jip (gyp?). Thighs swollen and so solid I could probably bounce bullets off them... (I probably won't try...)

Thursday 30 January 2025. Since the de-sloughing two weeks ago (an older name for it was "flaying") I have had a lot of pain and not got out much. The wound on my right leg grew and with compression on both legs the swelling higher up from knee to naughty bits has been debilitating. For instance, sitting in my desk chair results in painful dents on either side where the chair arms dig in.

I saw someone re the swelling (an advanced practitioner - if you want to see an actual doctor you either have to know one personally or watch that year's Strictly Come Dancing - Chris McCausland's joke was spot on there...) and had blood tests and ECG and it seems the thyroid has flared up again. This caused me quite a few problems in the later 2000s and could be causing some similar recognisable symptoms now.

No news on the cancer but an MRI is due some time in Feb/March so am quite happy to push that to the back of my mind.

Cancer and Leg Ulcers Index
Family Memories: Personal Index

Pain and Able...

This week has seen me suffering with a bad back. Something I'm prone to every now and then. I've no idea what I did but somehow I must have bent or twisted a bit funny because since Sunday I've been hobbling about the house holding onto walls and furniture.

Every day has brought a little relief and I've been working from home, sitting at my desk on a dining chair for a bit of support. Now, on Wednesday, I'm able to get up and move about without holding on and just every now and then whimper in a quiet way when the twinges hit me.

As a friend said, "When I whimper quietly to myself the wife wants to know who I'm thinking of..." Well all I am thinking of at times of wincing is myself and the injustice of it all! It can't be time for the zimmer frame yet, surely...

Nasal Hair - Bane of Men

I was reading somewhere the other day, someone bemoaning the fact that at the tender age of far-too-little he was starting to grow nasal hair.

Yes, it's the bane of men everywhere. I mean what good is it? What function does it provide? How do you get rid of it without pain?

My wife (I just have to assume she was joking) suggested pulling it out with tweezers! Ha ha! Get real!

The least little pain in the nose causes the eyes to water to the extent that could cause some homes to flood and, believe me, pulling at all - never mind that hard - blooming well hurts!

Do those little round special-shaped battery shavers work?

There was a bloke at work once - not the work where I am now, where everyone seems impeccably groomed, but a former place of less sartorial elegance - anyway there was this bloke there whose nasal hair was long enough to suck! By that, I mean long enough for him to suck - I wasn't suggesting anyone else could, or indeed should. That's sort of lost any social acceptability it may have once had - even if it once had...

It looks bloody awful, let's face it. And if it's that long then it looks even worse than moustaches and beards once food gets stuck to it. Yeowch, I hope he's seen the light now and cut it - well that was years ago, so if he hasn't by now he'd be sucking it involuntarily!!!

There's got to be some sort of implement better suited than the stuff that's available. Anything's got to be better than this... Sheesh and you women think you have it bad just having babies...!