Major catchup!...

I always sit down to update this blog and then end up not writing anything so now I have loads of things to write about! 
I'm going to try and keep each thing short and sweet and rambling to a minimum..

On the 5th December (was that really almost 4 months ago?!) I jetted off to Budapest with Joss and two close friends for another 21st birthday celebration, I mean if you can't go clubbing you have to have two trips right? It was a fantastic few days but I did struggle with the wheelchair a little and had some low times thinking about how different my 21st should of been. Although the hostel was pretty wheelchair friendly and I managed to get to the bathroom there with my crutches or sticks. All in all it was great to get away with some of my biggest supports and best friends.

The trusty chair in it's 3rd country!

 

On the 23rd December I moved back up to my old upstairs bedroom after 16 months sleeping in the bedroom my parents had to make for me in our front room, in order for me to come home from hospital. I started off in that room barely able to transfer from my wheelchair into my bed with a board and with a commode in there, but it was still hard moving back upstairs. After I first went back into my room I decided to have it painted a different colour to make it easier but it still didn't feel like 'my room'. I think it's because I feel so different from the 'old' me now and I probably subconsciously thought everything would be back to normal when I went back. I'm slowly accepting I won't be exactly the same ever again, no part of my life will be the same but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. 

On Christmas eve I had an appointment with my burns and plastics consultant to review my scalp surgery (read about that here), at the review it was decided that I will have the surgery repeated to improve the size further and hopefully that will help with the pain and pulling of the hair around it. I also had some painful steroid injections into part of my shoulder scars that are hypertrophic in the hope it will break down some of the tissue and help with the pain. Most of my scars are hypertrophic..

''A hypertrophic scar is a cutaneous condition characterized by deposits of excessive amounts of collagen which gives rise to a raised scar, but not to the degree observed with keloids.^[1] Like keloids, they form most often at the sites of pimples, body piercings, cuts and burns. They often contain nerves and blood vessels. They generally develop after thermal or traumatic injury that involves the deep layers of the dermis and express high levels of TGF-β.
When a normal wound heals, the body produces new collagen fibers at a rate which balances the breakdown of old collagen. Hypertrophic scars are red and thick and may be itchy or painful. They do not extend beyond the boundary of the original wound, but may continue to thicken for up to six months. They usually improve over the one or two years, but may cause distress due to their appearance or the intensity of the itching; they can also restrict movement if they are located close to a joint.
Some people have an inherited tendency to this type of scarring'' wikipedia

The 3rd January was both the one year anniversary of me standing up and my first driving lesson since before the crash. I may need to have an automatic but I am determined to learn and pass in a manual if possible because I feel it is an advantage to be able to drive a manual if needs be. Having a car would be so helpful to me as I can't walk anywhere but could get out more independently if I could drive to my destination. It's definitely very emotionally hard being in a car and I am filled with panic but I'm focusing in how much it would aid my recovery.

The 8th January was my five year anniversary with Joss! I intend to do a full post at some point about everything he has done for me but we'll save that for a really soppy day! 

For the 16th and 17th January I was in London with mom to see a ballet as her 50th birthday present from me! I used my wheelchair for 90% of the trip but was able to use sticks to get on and off escalators without which we wouldn't have been able to use the tube at all. My barely 5ft tall mom had to carry my wheelchair while I clung on to the escalators and you would be shocked at how few people offered to help! Just being able to do that though is massive progress for me. The ballet was called La Corsaire and was a sort of pirate love story, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to be honest and the skill of the dancers is just amazing.

 

Last but certainly not least Joss had an operation on his shoulder! His first operation date was cancelled pretty much just before the anesthetist came to see him! And he ended up having it three weeks later on the 17th February (his 22nd birthday). He dislocated his collar bone in the crash which was treated with a sling and left but as it was causing him pain again 18 months on they basically pushed it back down and secured it into place with an artificial ligament. It was very painful and he wasn't allowed to drive for 5 weeks which was hard on both of us as I can't walk anywhere we were pretty stuck, but he's doing really well now and is back driving phew!

 

Now I hope this post wasn't too boring as I was trying to cram in too many things but I really am going to try and update this more often as i find it really helpful even just to myself. 

Thank you to everyone that ever reads this blog and to all the people who give me feedback on it. It gives me a place to express myself, see my progress and hopefully help any other people in the mean time. I absolutely love hearing from people and would love some comments if anyone has any :)

DRIVE SAFE, George xxx

Scalp Operation and 21st birthday celebrations!

   I have neglected this blog for a whole month and although I only have two official followers I have had over 8500 views (If you read this blog please give me a follow!) so I apologise for that!

  On October 17th I had an operation on my scalp. You can see a full list of my injuries here but as I was run over and dragged beneath the car my helmet was broken and ripped upwards meaning my head was dragged along the tarmac.  

*Please don't anyone read this and think 'helmets are pointless then' because the car tyres drove into/over my skull before I was dragged and I don't need to go into details of what would of happened to my skull/brain if I wasn't wearing my helmet. That is also why you need to take great care of your helmet and always wear one that fits you perfectly and one that you can be certain has never been dropped.*
Obviously this left me with a large area on the right side of my scalp that was missing skin this led to half of my hair being cut and shaved to prevent infection. With intensive treatment and care the area healed over with scar tissue covering my skull up again nicely! While the outer area of scar tissue began pushing new hairs through, the deepest central area was essentially pure scar tissue from the skull up so it stayed bald and numb. My fantastic burns and plastics consultants put a plan together to remove as much of the scar as possible and try and close it up to give me a thinner scar and therefore less obvious bald patch. Too avoid expansion surgery (insertion of a balloon under the skin which is regularly filled with saline to make extra skin) they opted to just pull the two sides together after the middle was cut out meaning it could be too tight and may take more than one operation.
As always I was mostly nervous about the waking up from the anesthetic, I wrote here that I pulled myself out of the coma and as you can imagine it was an extremely terrifying experience that left me scared of falling asleep for a while and each operation is a reminder of that. The operation went ok though and although I needed a drip and some extra oxygen for a while when I woke up I was allowed home the same day. This one was very painful and I so tight I genuinely couldn't lift my right eyebrow for two weeks. Oh and I wasn't allowed to wash my hair for two weeks! I wont know until my follow up on Christmas eve whether they need to do another operation on it and I can't see it myself in a mirror but I have some photo's taken by Joss which I will include, to me they are not very gross but feel free to skip past them!

The morning of the operation (yes those are white frazzled hairs trying to grow out of it)

2 weeks after looking smaller about to get the stitches out (surgical gel not grease!)

22nd of November was my 21st birthday! My 20th birthday wasn't great and although I still couldn't go on a wild night out or anything I have come a long way since then and wanted it to be special. With some help from Joss and some friends I decided to plan a weekend away, well that soon became two weekends away with two different sets of friends! I settled on Devon for 3 nights on my actual birthday with 11 friends and Budapest two weeks later with Joss and two other close friends. I have just come back from Devon and it was brilliant! I worked my arse off in physio for the last few months which really paid off with me being able to use crutches in the house and get out of my chair and walk a distance when we went to the beach, I was so happy! I did actually have to dose up on codeine and have a nap when we got back from the beach but who cares it was brilliant!

The day before my birthday three of my best friends, Naomi, Beckie and Aaron took me to TGI Fridays in Birmingham and then to the German market and it was genuinley probably the best night I've had since the crash. They made me feel so special and made such an effort with balloons, confetti, hand made cards and a birthday cake (which involved a rather embarrassing song from the staff...) The German market was amazing too and somehow I managed to attract a polish man who took a liking to me and went off and brought me a birthday present!

I spent the morning of my birthday with my mom before Joss picked me up for the 3 hour drive to Devon. My mom is absolutely incredible she always has been and she has literally done everything for me since the crash. She had to be told I would probably die, she sat with me while I was in a coma, she rushed to me when I woke up from it at 3am, she sat in a chair next to my bed all day and night every night for the first week, she got to me at 10am every morning stayed until 2pm when Joss came drove home and came all the way back at 6pm to sit with me until 8am every single day I was in hospital and when I came home she washed me, emptied my commode and took me shouting at her when I couldn't cope anymore. She went to the effort of getting me 21 presents for my 21st birthday, not all big fancy things but lovely stuff that made me smile. One of them was even an elephant she had knitted (elephants are my favourite animal) despite only having knitted a few things before and having the kitten unravel it twice!
I hope everyone knows how grateful I am for making this birthday so special and I cannot wait for the next installment in Budapest!!!

DRIVE SAFE, George xxx

FEB '13 - Court case, Waiting list for operations and Joss's 21st...

   I'll skip past Valentine's Day and go straight to February 17th, Joss's 21st birthday. I felt pretty bad because he didn't get to do anything really good for it because I couldn't have joined in and he felt too bad to do anything that I would be missing out on. In the end he just had a night out in Cheltenham with some mates, which I was upset not to be able to go to but I felt more guilty that he couldn't do something better. On the actual day we went for a family meal at Jimmy Spices and although it was a good evening the food was not great haha. I tried to make up for him not doing anything too fun by getting him a surprise gift of a bungee jump. I was apprehensive about it before I even bought it because I am now scared of everything that could induce these kind of injuries...but he loved it so hopefully the cord wont snap! I didn't mention in the last post but January 8th was our 4 year anniversary, pretty impressive but it's safe to say I love him more than ever now and he has had to see me in a horrific state and thought I was dead and I don't think I'd of coped if it was the other way round. Here's a cheesy picture 1st is us in 2009 at Sonisphere festival and the 2nd at his sister Rhianna's birthday meal in October (leaning on my wheelchair!)

February 18th was the day of the court case. I'm not going to go into the legal stuff - what happened and the result - purely because I'm not sure if I am allowed. As this was the other driver's fault (that much has been completely clear from day 1) we have a claim - something that was started before I even woke up from my coma - and I don't want to affect that. I can tell you that it was one of the hardest days of my life. Joss had obviously met the person who did this as he was completely conscious at the scene but I hadn't. Apparently they did not act in a 'helpful way' shall we say at the scene and I didn't really want to face them 6 months on. We had to wait a long time at the court and I had to be briefed on the fire procedure and sign to say I was happy to be evacuated on a special stair chair in the event of a fire. This heightened my emotions as if it wasn't for THEIR actions I wouldn't be using a chair at all. I cried silently pretty much from when we arrived, Joss's parent's went up stairs while we waited for the lift and came back looking worried to say 'they' were up there. My heart felt like it flew into my mouth, I felt absolute horror and panic. I didn't want to see them. I didn't want to be there. I looked away and they pushed me straight to the furthest waiting area around a corner. After a long wait we were called into quite a small court room where I saw them for the first time. I was parked at the back feeling very fragile in my wheelchair my head wound and remains of my hair wrapped up in a scarf. They tried to speak to me while the court adjourned but it was too distressing and the fact they didn't even know my name said it all to me. Joss had decided to write them a letter explaining all my injuries and what I had endured and was still enduring because if the punishment wasn't going to be severe we needed them to know what they had actually done. It was extremely hard and I'm so thankful I had Joss there with me to hold me and understand that the fact the court case was done didn't mean anything was over for me. I'm not going to go into that anymore because I will never shut up...
 
   By some luck that same evening I was going to see Circus of Horrors with Joss's family for his 21st birthday. We saw it at the Birmingham new alexandra theatre, and I have to say the disabled access was ok. I was however quite annoyed that as we were let in the side entrance the attendant decided to ask me if I needed the toilet before I went in, in front of everyone. I'm sorry but... really?! If you want to let me know where the disabled toilet is just say 'Just to let you know our disabled toilet is down there'...but anyway the show was AMAZING. Some of the acts were just insane, swallowing swords, hanging by their hair, acrobatics mid air! The only problem was that because we had to sit in the disabled area the balcony above blocked our view of some of the aerial acts but all in all it was a good end to what started as a very horrible day.
 

   I had an appointment with my burn's consultant on February 26th where I was put on the list for an operation on my scalp. After I was driven over I was dragged over 10 metres at which point my helmet was partly smashed and ripped of my head removing a large chunk of my chin. My head along with the rest of me was dragged along the road resulting in a large part of the right side of my scalp was completely rubbed/scraped/torn off. As well as hair being cut and shaved off around it this has left me with a big scar on my head about 2.5 inches wide and 4 inches long which hair will never grow through. So they essentially want to cut that out, pull it together and staple it in place. This will leave a scar but will be a big improvement on what I have now. My only worries are about it being too tight and them having to use expansion which is where they place a balloon under the skin and fill it with saline solution over a long period of time to stretch the skin. But we'll take it as it comes! 

I'll leave this post with a few pictures from February...

My fab nails done by my friend Naomi!

A little mini visitor with my friend Beckie!

DRIVE SAFE, George xxx