Wigan to Tenby

Actually, for what it specialises in, the hospital is poo hot. Second best in the country, and the best is the Bupa private hospital at Droitwich, but that is usually used for Premiership patients and those with the best occupational Bupa cover like police officers.

Bit poo really. She started getting pains in her legs, then started to lose mobility. GP puts her on pain persons, but she can't see the physio for 6 months. Eventually sees the physio, no help, and can't see the pain control nurse for 6 months. Eventually, with a stick she could hobble but couldn't do stairs, and after another 6 months, sees a consultant (yes 18 months). He sends her for Xrays and scans and suggests that until you can get proper treatment she should have an epidural to deaden the pain. They try to administer that under local, but totally f*** it up and even with the local, she feels everything and swears the needle scraped bone somewhere, she was about to pbutt out so they stopped. A couple of weeks later, she can barely even hobble, the pain persons constipate her, and the other pills they give her for that make her wake up, so they give her another to make her sleep.

Then her arse cheek, and thigh start to swell. So she is taken to casualty. The Doctor on duty organises a scan, wants to keep her in. Calls her consultant who says "send her home, and have her come back tuesdays for the results". When she goes in Tuesday, he is fawning and creeping, and even wheeling her arround in the wheelchair himself (the 100k a year consultant). Turns out, there is a mbuttive mbutt in the soft tissue. It is wrapped arround and constricting the sciatic nerve.

A Christies specialist examines the scan results, but not her. Says it is unlikely to be a tumour, and suggests "The Robert Jones" at Oswestry, as it is likely to be an absess. When she gets there, they discover that she hadn't been swabbed for MRSA before leaving (the RJ is totally MRSA and has won loads of awards for standards and hygene), and had a bed sore on her bad foot. They are making a case against her local hospital for her.

Since getting to the RJ, she is more cheerful. The food is much better, they have better visiting hours and less restrictions on numbers. Parking is a flat rate until 5pm, and then free after, and the Doctor openly admitted, if it is a tumour, it won't be her smoking that caused it (unlike everyone else). Smoking does cause soft tissue tumours.

Upshot is, the consultant at the RJ is pretty sure it is a tumour not an Absess. He is waiting for biopsey results, but just to find if it is benign or malignant. As it is so high on the leg, it is unlikely they will fit an artificial limb if it is malignant. If it is benign, they will still have to remove it, but may cause at best loss of feeling and control, at worse paralysis because of how it is clamping the nerve.

She is like me though, poo happens so why bother about it. Hope for the best, but expect the worst, as you are rarely disappointed.

If it proves to be cancer, and it has taken nearly two years of constant pushing to get sorted, the South Cheshire PCT is going to get a major financial arse kicking. Due to her pain and suffering and lack of mobility, she had to sell her 50 ponies at about 1-4 of what they were worth, at a time they were at their least valuable, because she couldn't afford to feed them, due to not being able to work, as well as the loss of a limb, and the financial hardship it will cause to my father as he has had to take time off work to care for her and will have to do much more if she loses a leg. -- Carl Robson