The General Chat Thread (2016-2022)

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TastyReuben said:
The snow has abated for probably the rest of the day, so I have today and tomorrow to get it cleared before it starts up again tomorrow night. As long as the power stays on...I'm enjoying this. I like a good winter now and again.
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Well, I'm glad someone is enjoying this.:headshake:

CD
 
Decided that reading medical reports is really bad for my health.
My fall last month started with just a broken big toe and a grade 3 sprain of my right ankle. It also confirmed mild osteoarthritis in my big toe via the x-ray.
Ultrasound showed that the sprain was worse than hoped for, 2 grade 3 tears of vital ankle ligaments (grade 3 is a complete tear all the way through) and 2 grade 2 tears of some ankle tendons (grade 2 are partial tears so still some connected tissue). Grade 2 tears hurt more than grade 3 because grade 3 are totally severed so pain signals don't get through.
Follow up tests included xrays of my right knee which have shown I've fractured the top of my weight bearing bone (tibia). It's fractured roughly 75% of the way through at the very head of the bone. If it breaks it's too close to the top you repair with any ease.
Xrays of my left foot (left big toe is still hurting badly) show that I have mild OA in that toe as well. It also shows that I've a healing fracture of the 3rd metatarsal (toe bone that's in the foot rather than the toe) at its head where it connects to the ankle bone. I am not aware of having previously broken my foot so can only assume that it happened are same time as the other 2 breaks.
I've yet to receive the medical report of my left knee.

Summary,
  • my right ankle and foot are in a medical bootie (modern plaster cast) due to grade 3 tears of ligaments and broken right big toe.
  • My right knee should be in plaster but can't be because of my ankle. So it is strapped up in a support to prevent sideways movement and I've got to not bend it and under no circumstances put any weight through it.
  • My left foot apparently has a partially healed fracture in it. No one has yet to tell me about this fracture or that I'm probably not meant to be weight bearing on it. It's taking all my weight right now.
  • My left knee... the xrays are available to me but the report isn't. I can see 2 horizontal thin lines in the tibia about 4-5cm down from the top... again I've not yet spoken to anyone regarding this but as far as I can tell they are probably stress fracture and also 'healing...
I think I did rather more damage when I fell than I first realised. I actually walked back home after the fall carrying the chicken I caught whilst lying on my back immediately after the fall. I continued to walk for 3 days after that before the bootie was put on and for 4 weeks after the bootie was on despite the fractured tibia. I've now found out at week 5 that I've actually fractured a 3rd bone (in my left foot) and probably a 4th on my left knee (both tibia stress fractures are that high up they count as knee injuries not leg injuries...)

So that's both feet and both knees... the irony is that none of those actually hurt. It's the partially torn grade 2 tears of the ankle tendons that hurt the most. So the least serious injuries actually hurt the most! Lol just what I needed.

Guess my next talk with my doctor or endocrinologist will be to get my bone density tests repeated (again). I've had 3 treatments for osteoporosis and it's meant to stop this year. That started after a fall broke 10 ribs in 11 places just over 2 years ago. Doesn't look like things have improved much. Last time I was diagnosed with osteopenea (the stage before osteoporosis) having improved from having full osteoporosis. Guessing things might have deteriorated again.

On top of everything else going on. It don't need this! needs I still haven't had the MRI of my left knee and left ankle done yet.
 
TastyReuben said:
Well, it took me a bit longer than last time, and I'm a lot more sore all over, but the driveway is cleared. I also cleared a spot for the birds to feed.
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The like is for clearing a spot for the birds.

Do they also have fresh water? We used to have to break the ice several times a day in cold spells. Fresh water is so vital for them at times like your's currently.
 
Yeah :woot:my left knee is clear! (ish)
57502

One bit of me works... horaay
 
rascal said:
Good news must lift your spirits. You're braver than I.!!

Russ
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Thanks, but reading between the lines and looking up the 'mild irregularity in the contour' it suggests there could be stress fractures in the tibia, matching the confirmed stress fracture in the tibia on the other side. (The thin horizontal lines i mentioned before).
Guessing the right side took more of the stress of the fall than the left did.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
The like is for clearing a spot for the birds.

Do they also have fresh water? We used to have to break the ice several times a day in cold spells. Fresh water is so vital for them at times like your's currently.
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Yes - I have the dog's electric water bowl plugged in out there.
 
TastyReuben said:
Yes - I have the dog's electric water bowl plugged in out there.
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We used to feed the wild birds when we lived in the UK. One house that we lived at for 13 years in particular got through an amazing volume of wild bird feed. We used to have problems with wild pheasants. Instead of running away from you when you owned a for it window, they would run towards you.
If the door was left open, you'd end up with a pheasant in the house and usually the kitchen because it was where we feed them. The hedgerow ran only a few meters from the kitchen window, the back door at 90 degrees you it, rubbing perpendicular to the hedge, the sitting room window ran parallel to the hedge, creating a closed in area that the birds loved. I had a small herb garden in this sheltered spot, then a brick path to the kitchen door and access to the rectangular oil container (Central heating oil) and the old well. The hedge was a proper traditional English hedgerow, huge old hawthorn (their circumference at the base of the tree was massive). The birds loved the area. We used the ground between the path and the hedge as a feeding area for some, along with the water. Then there was feeding area on top of the oil tank. Plus we had constructed a wire suspended from two scaffolding poles hammered into the ground. They allowed us to hang a huge array of feeders from it ranging from black sunflower seed, to peanuts, to nigera seed and the usual wild bird seed. In winter homemade fat balls were made from coconut shells we'd collected over the years (we'd deliberately saw off the side of the shell so as to make it useful later in the year because coconut shell was one of the few things we could not compost. ).

Nowadays we don't deliberately feed the Aussie native wildlife though they are exceptionally good at helping themselves to anything around and it has become a battle of the wits to stop them...

But the chickens do a good job of feeding the crested pigeons who will walk all over the feet of the chooks whilst they are head first in our feeders. I'll see if I can get a photo later on. Its tricky at the moment because of needing to use the wheelchair!
 
And most of the birds drink from the chooks water. There's not much around...

And we're keeping alive a Australia magpie that was attacked back in the winter (August whilst my parents were here). It has a broken wing and can no longer fly but it's ingenuity is amazing. We frequently spot it high up in the branches of certain trees and it roosts at night in the tree overt my 4x4. It has found a route up they only involves hopping from branch to branch to get there. And we find it on top off our house from time to time. Again it has found a route that allows it to hop up onto the dog cage, then onto a fence, along the fence onto the garage, over or through the jasmine and onto the roof out the mud room, from there it is easy access to the roof of the house... We didn't think it would live at first, but more than 6 months on and it is still alive. It will be a sad day when we haven't seen it for a while but this next few months will be hard for it. It is fox season soon. When this year's offspring are driven out of the family den and have to survive by themselves heading into winter. That is when we have the biggest chook losses. Last season we were lucky and lost none. Fingers crossed for this season.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
And most of the birds drink from the chooks water. There's not much around...

And we're keeping alive a Australia magpie that was attacked back in the winter (August whilst my parents were here). It has a broken wing and can no longer fly but it's ingenuity is amazing. We frequently spot it high up in the branches of certain trees and it roosts at night in the tree overt my 4x4. It has found a route up they only involves hopping from branch to branch to get there. And we find it on top off our house from time to time. Again it has found a route that allows it to hop up onto the dog cage, then onto a fence, along the fence onto the garage, over or through the jasmine and onto the roof out the mud room, from there it is easy access to the roof of the house... We didn't think it would live at first, but more than 6 months on and it is still alive. It will be a sad day when we haven't seen it for a while but this next few months will be hard for it. It is fox season soon. When this year's offspring are driven out of the family den and have to survive by themselves heading into winter. That is when we have the biggest chook losses. Last season we were lucky and lost none. Fingers crossed for this season.
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I didn't know your mum and dad had gone back to the uk. That must be a weight lifted off your shoulders.!!
The guy doing my painting is a Pom. ( a Brit ) we have mutual friends, I asked him about a couple that shifted here from the uk 10 years ago, alas I wondered I hadn't seen them, she missed her family so they split and her and kids moved back to,the U.K. Spencer stayed on and is now in the north island.

Russ
 
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