It’s seemed like a long time, but finally, the end is in sight.
Back in June, when his well and truly broken leg was pinned together, Mr TLC was told it would be 4-6 months before the frame could be removed – assuming everything went well. He had five months fixed in his head, I had chatted to some of his fellow patients and suspected it might be longer. We settled in for the long haul.
We’ve had some positive signs since then : x-rays that revealed fuzzy edges where there had been a clean break; Mr TLC gradually becoming more mobile; the frame being weakened by having one supporting bar removed. Best of all, we’ve avoided any nasty infections (so far). All progress, but very, very slow.
Then Mr TLC called me after his last hospital appointment to tell me that his nuts had been loosened.
Ooh er.
He’s still pinned together, but the frame is now as weak as it’s going to get. All being well, it comes off next week.
The end is nigh. Normal life will be resumed shortly.
Mr TLC starts to get mobile, including walking from the kitchen to the living room using only one crutch. Result. This momentous step forward marks Mr TLC’s return to being a maker of copious cups of tea.
Mr TLC’s latest x-ray shows signs of the bones starting to heal. Woohoo!
I conquer the paper mountain that formed spontaneously during the last few weeks of term. I churn through a mass of dull but essential tasks and time-thieving paperwork. My desk reappears. Yay!
Mr TLC continues to head along the return route to normality: he is not just able to make a sandwich, he’s back to making the bread.
GCSE results day arrives surprisingly quickly. Flowers and thank you cards arrive rather unexpectedly. How lovely.
Mr TLC starts to take a few steps without his crutches. Only on flat ground and his gait resembles a drunken Charlie Chaplin, but it’s progress.
Which just leaves the millstone. Unlike Neil (who did brilliantly), I got a rather bad mark on my final tutor marked assignment. In fact, eventually I admitted to myself that I couldn’t meet the deadline and had to take a hit on that one: no final TMA submitted, so a score of 0% for me. Not what I envisaged when I started the course, but May and June did not go to plan and sadly something had to give. My average score is high enough to pass that section of the course, but there’s just the small daunting matter of the final assignment that will account for 50% of my mark on this unit. Better write quickly, time’s running out…
Mr TLC obviously felt that Super Mum had not tested the services of the NHS rigorously enough, so he decided to take on a spot of testing himself.
It started with a bang, the sort of bang made by a man who has missed his footing momentarily, stumbled on a small step and fallen down.
“Are you alright?”
“No, I’ve broken my leg,” replied Mr TLC, in the calmest voice you can imagine.
The calm tone left me wondering whether he was exaggerating as I dashed upstairs to make sure.
He wasn’t.
So, another dramatic weekend ensued. It started with an ambulance, a trip to casualty and the prospect of Mr TLC returning home with a pot on his leg a couple of hours later. Then x-rays revealed that Mr TLC had broken both tibia and fibula right through, so things escalated to an overnight stay in the hospital and the prospect of the breaks being plated. Chapter one finally ended after a few days in hospital and surgery to fit an external frame and pins[pictures via that link may not be suitable for those of a squeamish disposition].
Throughout this I kept thinking about the ad that encourages you to buy travel insurance. The one where every nurse, doctor and piece of medical equipment has a price tag attached. I am very, very thankful that we live in a place and a time where our healthcare is both high quality and pre-paid.
I also discovered just how supportive the head and my colleagues at my new school are. I had to take some time off when Mr TLC came home from hospital and then to go to outpatient appointments with him. Fortunately the GCSE maths exams were over and Y11 were out on exam leave, otherwise that would have been a real nightmare. Still, there were several days when either I wasn’t in school at all, or I dashed in, taught a couple of lessons and dashed home again. But there were no problems. People covered my lessons with the greatest goodwill you can imagine – even when Ofsted turned up. My colleagues are truly, truly fantastic.
And it’s been a learning experience. I now know how to clean an Ilizarov frame, I can list the side effects from various pain killers, I’ve discovered where we keep the Hoover and I can operate the washing machine. Actually, I thought I could do that already, but no, I found myself staring at the damn thing trying to remember how to switch it on. How hard can it be? It’s only got two buttons! Can you tell who normally does all the housework? Yes, I’m a lucky so-and-so. And no, you can’t have Mr TLC. He’s my excellent househusband and I’m keeping him
Anyhoo, this storyline in the TLC Terrace soap opera is going to be a long one – Mr TLC is facing 4-6 months dressed up as a TV aerial. I may have to rename this blog One-Legged Man.
Which means our summer plans include very short walks and a lot of TV. All good fun.
It’s the start of June, which means that Mr TLC’s granddaughter is 3. Where does the time go? It also means that I get to play at baking birthday cakes. Actually, this year I get to do it twice – once for the family do, once for the kids’ party in a few days time. Excellent.
This year’s effort was a slightly wonky fairy castle, snapped rather badly with my phone. The phone has a perfectly adequate camera, alas it has a somewhat inadequate user who hasn’t quite got the hang of it yet. Still, practice makes perfect – and the fact that my camera has literally fallen apart means I foresee quite a bit of practice ahead!
Anyhoo, the slightly wonky fairy castle may not have looked like it wandered out of a professional kitchen, but it did look like it had been home made – and it tasted nice. And it put a very big smile on the birthday girl’s face.
A glance at my sidebar indicates a rather quiet May. A glance at my life indicates quite the opposite, the last month has been somewhat eventful.
It started quietly enough. In fact, in a nice bit of temporal symmetry, the month both began and ended with school holidays. During the first one, I did something that I ought to do more often: I gave myself a break. I did a lot of reading, which felt very self indulgent, but it was good. In fact something of a book binge ensued. (Hmm, a book binge in May, haven’t I done that before?) Watching Game of Thrones meant that like many others, I decided to try the books and had a thoroughly enjoyable time reading the series, or at least, the four books that have been published so far. If fantasy is your thing, I’d recommend it, tis good. Been a wholelot ofreading going on this month, probably worth a post of its own.
We also had a few grand days out, the best of which was our jaunt to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, something else that’s worthy of a post of its own. Maybe later.
Went back to school feeling so relaxed that putting my school shoes on felt weird. Driving the car to work felt weird. I love my job, but taking a real break from it was good, think I need to do that more often.
Anyway, I went back to work expecting a busy few weeks – it is the final countdown to exams for several year groups – and I was not disappointed.
We also had a busy month scheduled on the home front – starting with a trip to the World Water Bombing Championships. Probably an ideal world championship for me, but we were spectators, not competitors We had lots of other things lined up, but then life dropped one of its little surprises on us.
A phone call heralded a worrying few days and a lot of hospital visiting. Happily the outcome involved establishing that the Royal Derby Hospital is flipping fantastic and that SuperMum has magnificent recuperative powers. Go SuperMum!
And as for young people today, what can I say? After a weekend of hospital visiting I offered my apologies to Y10 for not marking their work on time and for an unexpected change of plan for our lessons that week. On hearing this, they were not only very kind and supportive to me, they did something rather lovely. During the lesson I had a sense they were up to something, but no more than that. At the end of the lesson they presented me with a homemade get well card for SuperMum, signed by them all, with lots of nice messages and kind words. Young people today – take it from me, they’re marvellous!
That just left a few events to round off the month: our car spoiling its clean sheet and becoming intimately acquainted with an AA tow truck; an unsuccessful job interview (still, I do like my current job, so no complaints there) and a nostalgic trip back to my old hometown for a TeachMeet. Also getting lost in my old hometown, but we won’t mention that bit, nor the part where I drove around shouting at Sandra the SatNav. Ahem.
What did I do in May? I rode the rollercoaster of life. It may not have gone to plan, but it turned out OK.
Posted by: Lois Lindemann on: March 24th, 2011 Posted in: Everything Tags for this post: Leave a comment
Apparently I’m moving. Ooh er.
The server that hosts this site is setting off on a short voyage to a new data centre later today, so I may be offline for a while – hopefully not for very long.
Last summer, Eleven, a local creative design studio produced a very nice little booklet and accompanying website called ‘Our Favourite Places’, a very personal guide to some of Sheffield’s restaurants, shops, bars, parks and so on. (There’s a nice review here on Sheffieldblog.) I really liked the mix of photos, maps and descriptions. Much as I enjoyed the book, the best part was debating what had (or had not) been included.
So I think it’s time for my own guide. Many of my favourites feature in Eleven’s guide, but some don’t. Some of the things on my list are places worth visiting in their own right (eg the Millenium Galleries), others just offer up a few interesting moments if your’re in the area (such as the Sheffield TARDIS).
This is probably also a good excuse to revive the Beginner’s Guide to Sheffield, which is long overdue for an update and an overhaul.
Anyway, here’s a few that I’ve already mentioned, more will be added on a thoroughly irregular basis during the coming weeks and months :
Things I am not good at: reviewing plays. I offer as evidence the fact that this is my fourth (or is it fifth?) attempt to write a simple post. Could. Do. Better.
Cancel the review then, I’ll simply tell you that Sheffield Theatre’s David Hare season is highly recommended. Having managed to miss previous opportunities to see David Hare’s work (what was I thinking?) I announced that I was booking tickets for all three plays in the current season. Good decision.
So far we’ve seen Plenty and The Breath of Life. Both have been everything I want from a night at the theatre: highly entertaining, brilliantly performed and providing me with plenty (no pun intended) to think about afterwards. Needless to say, we’re looking forward to Racing Demon.
An unexpected bonus too, in the form of David Hare himself, reading Via Dolorosa. Despite his opening lines, in which he told us that the last time he acted was in a school play – and that these days he prefers to get Judi Dench to do this type of thing – he is a talented storyteller.
Via Dolorosa is a monologue, in which David describes a trip he made to Israel and Gaza. He paints vivid pictures of the people he met and the experiences he shared with them. David himself is very much a central character in this tale; so he did not simply describe what happened, he also offered us an insight into the thoughts and feelings he experienced on his journey through this divided land. The result was a mixture of play and journalism that took us from laughter to sombre reflection and back to laughter again. Most importantly, he made us think.
He left us with a question: stones or ideas?
Stones or ideas? Is that the right question? I don’t know the answer. But who does?
This is where I blither on about life, the universe and everything - sometimes even three-legged cats.
I am: a resident of Sheffield (it's been my home town for more than 20 years), a Londoner, a teacher of maths and ICT and a student of French.
I like: cats, Sheffield, walking, doing the pub quiz, maths, cooking, reading, red wine, theatre, weekends in London, cycling, eating out, museums, gardening, going to the cinema, real ale, learning French and spending far too much time online. (My partner, Mr TLC, says this is making me sound like a lonely hearts ad. Oh well.)
Any opinions expressed in this blog are my own, I don't claim to speak for anyone else in education or outside of it. If you disagree, feel free to comment!
Posted by: Lois Lindemann on: October 25th, 2011 
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It’s seemed like a long time, but finally, the end is in sight.
