Jan's Leg
Entry posted by Rudi
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My inspiration for dieting has been my partner Jan. She has been dieting for 2 years with little to show for it, but she doesn’t lose her resolve at all.
For a year (2006) she could take little exercise due to breaking her leg badly. She broke the fibula first (probably) & went to her doctor who diagnosed this as gout. When she complained of the pain she was feeling he prescribed painkillers & told her to carry on walking on it. After weeks of hobbling about on a broken leg, the adjacent tibia broke. She spent that Xmas in hospital and became the talk of the whole medical staff who couldn’t understand how she had been able to walk on it at all.
She was operated on Christmas morning and spent the next couple of weeks in a ward overlooking the ambulance entrance. During that fortnight I spent nearly £50 quid in parking charges just visiting her. She spent the same on phone bills. Being sick is expensive.
They could not pin the leg as her bones were not thick enough, so she spent many weeks in a whole-leg plaster cast. One day a nurse drew a smiley face on her foot in pen. Once she was out of sight, I scrubbed it off and replaced it with a frowning face. “What are you drawing down there?” she asked. I replied, “Never mind, just tell me what she says tomorrow ok?”
We got a wheel chair from the Red Cross and a pair of crutches from Alexandra Hospital. I became adept at assembling the chair & packing it away in the car. I also learned what the disabled have to negotiate re curb-stones and entrances to buildings etc. On holiday last Spring on the Isle of Wight, I kept pretty fit wheeling Jan up & down the hills in Cowes. At the next Havant Orchestra concert, the theatre staff removed a ground level seat to allow the wheel chair in.
In the chair, her leg stuck straight out in front of her. I found it useful for opening swing doors. At the supermarket, I encouraged her to try the courtesy (provided) powered chair, but she wouldn’t do it. They ought to provide a remote control device for those things. That way I could have had relieved her of the responsibility for driving it 
After the plaster came off she wore a ‘moon-boot’ at the exact same time as Wayne Rooney was pictured in the TV and press wearing one. One afternoon we took a stroll around Portchester Castle and she took time getting down some steps. There was a small group in front waiting to ascend the steps. “Come on” jibed one, “Rooney would have been down them steps by now”. I answered; “Compared to this one, Rooney is a wimp”. He looked rather taken aback at my disparaging remark about England’s football hero. I felt fine about it.
Also Jan has had type one diabetes since childhood. Injecting insulin 4 times a day hinders any attempt at weight loss. When she goes hypoglycaemic (2 or 3 times a week), she has to take a large amount of sugar onboard to restore a proper blood sugar level. It must be galling to spend the day subsisting on a couple of dry crispbreads & some cottage cheese, & then have to drink a bottle of lucozade followed by half a pack of dextrose tablets.
The weird thing is that she will not weigh herself. It’s a woman thing. She afraid to know what she weighs. Whatever she weighs, she carries it well. Being tall helps (she’s taller then I am).
If only she could learn to make a decent cup of tea I might marry her.
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