Something about myself
Many years ago I had a hobby of horse racing, but the time it took to maintain a set of card files for each horse was enormous and I had to give it up when I had a family. Many years later with the advances in computers I thought that it could be possible to use a computer to store and manipulate the horse racing data. One day I purchased a computer magazine and I was surprised to see that there were two adverts in it for computer horse racing programs. I sent off for them and was frustrated with the amount of information you had to input into the programs for them to forecast a race. It took about half an hour to do just one race, so you could bet that whatever race or races you attempted to forecast they would be the losers, and any winners would come from the races that you had not had time to do. I found that with all of my data I could supply all of the required information for the programs with the simple click of a mouse. The hobby just kept growing, until I could no longer work and have the hobby so I gave up work and ran a business supplying racing data for other peoples horse racing programs. I had to give up the business due to Doreen's continuing ill health problems.
2002. I had a terrible pain in my back which was diagnosed as a slipped disc and the advice from my doctor was that with rest it would get better, that was in March. It did not get better and I was left in extreme pain and on 16 tablets a day and also had morphine patches. There were periods of months when I could not move from the bed and it is a good job that I am fortunate enough to have a smashing wife who literally kept me alive, as there were many times that I did not want to go on with pain that was so severe it stopped you breathing. My body on my left hand side below the waist had deteriorated badly muscle wise, and I had lost the ability to move my left foot and toes as the nerve was so badly damaged, that my brain could no longer communicate with them. Due to being unable to get an operation on my spine until June 2004 which is two and a quarter years after the first diagnosis, the damage was too severe to be a viable operation. The neurosurgeon who carried out the operation said afterwards that is was the worse case that he had seen, and the operation that he had performed he could not and would not repeat on me as it was too dangerous. I am still in pain all day and the loss of knowing where my left foot and toes are continues, I am told that the scar tissue will re-grow in time and I will be back at square one again.
2005. In October I had an operation on my right eye to remove a cataract. This operation is performed while you are fully awake and relies on anesthetic drops to keep the pain under control, and the operation lasts about thirty minutes or so. If you have ever seen a program on TV where an art expert has sent an oil painting to be restored, you see someone with a small cotton wool swap slowly go over a small part of the painting and all of the original bright colour's are brought back to life, well that is exactly how stunning the difference is, truly a bloody miracle. On December 13th I had my left eye done and I now have a matching pair of eyes that can see better than at any time in my life (I am now 67). I can remember as a boy always sitting in the front row at school so that I could hopefully read what the teacher wrote on the blackboard, but frequently having to copy from whoever was sitting next to me. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who work in the cataract clinic at Addenbrooks Hospital in Cambridge. A really heartfelt thank you.
It is mid May 2007 and I have just come out of Addenbrooks hospital having had a complete knee replacement. Things are progressing slowly, and I really do mean slowly and any improvement has to be measured by the week and not by the day. The sad part is that as soon as I am over the operation I will have to go back in again to have the other knee replaced. Such is life.
31-10-2007. I have just received a letter from the hospital saying that my next operation is for the 5th of December. I suppose it is an early Christmas present?
04-12-2007. I am being admitted to hospital today to have my left knee replaced tomorrow.
05-12-2007. Operation went ok but when the anesthetic wore off I was in a lot more pain than I should have been and had to go onto morphine every 2 hours to try and control it. During my time on the operating table my already badly damaged spine had been compromised. Hopefully this pain will ease off in time.
June 2008. I have worked very hard on trying to get my old and a bit battered body back into shape, but it is very hard to make headway when you are approaching seventy. I plan to start fishing again on the first of July. I walk every day and I have just borrowed a mountain bike from my grandson. I have not ridden a bike since I was about twelve or thirteen, and I found that I could not even get my leg over it. By lying the bike almost down I could get on it and then pull the bike up under me. I cycle every other day and leg muscles are slowly getting stronger.
