Another good and busy weekend. Due to Steven’s slight improvement in walking, we visited a local sports goods store, and bought him a good pair of Nike trainers. With the new fixing clips for his ankle support, he felt the improvement in his walking immediately, as we could tell from the broad smile on his face. His walk was clearer and faster, with a lot of confidence. However this produces a lot of hip pain. We’ve had discussions about the hip, and we’ve all come to same conclusion that it would be better if he could have a hip replacement operation, because it would remove the existing chance of pain, and improve his walking and general well-being, even if an early operation had the possibility of another operation in a few years time. However Steven can only do this with the agreement of the doctors. We await their opinion. Steven desperately wants to return home, but he and us feel that it would be better to have the hip, and the elbow operations at the earliest opportunity. The danger is that if he goes home and comes under the control of a local hospital, he will go to the end of their waiting list. He's perhaps better of where he is. Last Saturday and Sunday morning were just relaxing times for all of us. No timetable, no noises except for Steven’s music, talking, or sleep or read when we wanted, lovely. Sunday afternoon we picked up Rene and we all went to Benidorm, Steven in the back seat of the car for the first time. He was nervous, but otherwise no problems. At Benidorm we walked around a small shopping area, with Steven saying that this is the first time he’d walked in public for a long time and that it felt weird. At one point we sat on a bench for a rest, and we were soon bothered by a local drunk asking for a cigarette. We ignored him, and I joked to Steven that if there was a problem watch my back. However this comment drew the comment from Steven that he was aware that he couldn’t protect anyone in his condition, and didn’t know when he would be able to. This upset him greatly, especially as he was with Rene, a prime concern for him at the moment. The drunk went on his way and we did our best to lighten the mood especially as the drunk took a full pack of cigarettes out of his pocket?? The walking though paid a toll for Steven, the pain in his hip was intense. We hope the doctors listen to Steven’s pleas for an operation. We changed over car contents, and Paul took Steven back to the hospital, whilst we returned home. For a short time Steven has been suffering with toothache. A visit to the hospital dentist revealed that he had at least 2 broken teeth, as a result of the accident, and were only now beginning to cause problems. We’ve been told that the Health Service will bear the cost of the removal of the teeth, but will not cover the cost of any subsequent repair or replacement. Steven has made amazing progress since coming out of his coma, but we all still have a huge sense of anger at what’s happened to him, and to us as a family. It’s as though when there’s an improvement, there’s a setback. I’ve mentioned this so many times before, but it doesn’t get any easier. And there’s nothing we can do to prevent the setbacks, nor anything we can do to help Steven. It’s as though so many people are against us. We can understand the hospitals’ reluctance to spend money on operations and after care due to financial restrictions. Then there’s the insurance who have a responsibility to their owners or shareholders to reduce costs, and therefore payments. Then there’s the Courts who are so overwhelmed with caseloads. Then there’s the person who did this to Steven. There is nowhere where we can vent our anger and frustration. We are totally dependant on all manner of different organisations and people. In the middle of all this is Steven suffering both physically and mentally. If only everyone was able to pull together to look after Steven’s concerns, he would get better more quickly, and therefore ultimately reduce costs. All we can do is push for this to happen, and encourage Steven the best way we can, but there’s only so much we can say and do, it’s all been said and done before. Your messages of support have helped enormously, thank you.
Best regards
Terry
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