Start Me Up

Well another week over, another sick note from my GP! This time for another two weeks. However, its not all negative- quite the contrary.

I've been to see the physiotherapist again and after some treatment, my knee is feeling better and I can see the green shoots of recovery. (Hopefully more real than the green shoots of recovery that politicians keep seeing for the economy). I have 2 more sessions of physio over the next two weeks to undertake. The physio thinks gentle riding on my bike on the turbo trainer will be good for me - I like this physio's advice.

I got the disc of my MRI scan today from my GP to give to the physio, so I did what most people would do and loaded it onto my laptop to view the scan results. Why I did that, I have no idea as I have no idea what I was looking at or what it should look like.

I'm hoping that February may see me back at work again.

As part of my positive thinking, I have already started looking ahead to a potential re visit of LEJoG this summer. I had preliminary chats over the last two nights with some of those who are interested in doing the same. Come on now Drew, Greg, Joe (& potentially David), get your minds on the task in hand and get started on the necessary training for this ride. Hopefully it will take place at the end of July/ early August.

The preliminary discussions are for our doing it in 14 days or less. It will probably be mostly unsupported, This will make it harder than last year as I will have to be carrying all my own luggage all the way.

The idea is to use the same route as I used in 2009, subject to a few tweaks.

Its nice to be able to look positively at things and see the chance to plan for some riding. This positive attitude seems to have coincided with the snow going- is there a connection?

What else has been happening?

Well, I finally got round to buying myself a laptop and setting up a wireless network at home. Great, it means I can surf the net on the nettie now! What it really means is that I can surf the net downstairs whilst watching the TV, and trying to update my facebook profile.

I've also spent a couple of days trying to sort out my credit file. It appears that a certain Credit Reference Agency whom I can't name for legal reasons, but for simplicity lets call them Equifax, have recorded that I have numerous credit cards that do not still exist and in some cases have never existed. This has an adverse effect on my credit rating and needs resolving.

The prospect of getting back on my bike and doing LEJoG and the Police Unity Tour ride has me thinking its time to lose some weight. So the diet starts on Monday.

My New Years resolutions remain on course. I'm not saying what they are, but I'm on course to keep them at present.

The Long & Winding Road

Well I went to see a consultant last week. As I was still unlikely to get to see a consultant on the NHS for at least another month, I arranged on Wednesday an appointment with a consultant privately for the next day. (Who says money doesn't buy you preferential treatment?)

The consultant told me that he would prefer not to operate on the tear as it was difficult to get to the damage and there was a serious risk of an operation causing more damage than I have at present. The consultant instead drained some fluid off the knee and sent me for physiotherapy.

Again thanks to the miracles of paying privately, I was able to see a physiotherapist the same day. After a lengthy consultation and some manipulation he gave me a series of exercises to perform daily. He also told me that I appear to have two injuries to my knee; the tear that was shown up in the MRI scan, and a possible boney injury just above my knee cap on the left side of the left knee. This confirms what I have thought all along. Since Thursday, I have been more aware of the two different injuries and the pain is coming from the injury above the knee cap rather than the tear.

I have an appointment with the physiotherapist again on Thursday, and am seeing my GP on Friday and hope to get some form of x ray referral for the injury above the knee cap. I am starting to think the tear is a minor issue and can be resolved by the exercises to build up the other muscles in my knee to ease the pressure on the tear. The pain above the knee cap is concerning me as it appears to be getting worse not better.It is some 9 weeks or so since the accident and should have been getting better if it was just bruising. At least that is what I would have expected, but I am not a doctor!

There was some good news from the physiotherapist though as he advised me that using an exercise bike would be good for my knee if I used it gently. Guess who has got the turbo trainer out of the shed and will be riding everyday in the house now? The only downside is that he told me to use a geared bike, not my favourite fixed wheel bike.

Both the consultant and the physiotherapist left me with some hope that I will be able to ride in the USA in May on the Police Unity Tour. So to that end things are positive.

I can't leave this post without a word on the weather. I know many people had problems getting into work this week because of the weather. Not me though. My problems were not weather related. Actually here in Ilford we never got more than about 1" of snow. I feel left out as apparently the rest of the country have had loads of snow.