26th January 2012

Steven continues to recover from his hip replacement. The hip pain from the accident has gone, he now only has muscle pain from the operation, and the beginnings of his exercises. He has lost a lot of muscle size from his left leg, requiring food and exercise to return it to normal. His walking, with a walking stick, is still a slow shuffling motion, with no real visible improvement, only time will do that. The Doctor is pleased with his recovery, the wound having healed perfectly. Steven is aware that all this is taking time, and we're amazed at his patience, and his acceptance of that fact. X-rays (on the Facebook site) after the operation reveal the extent of the damge to the pelvis area, being totally knocked out of shape, it is now understandable why he was in so much pain all the time. He now awaits for a vast improvement in his pain level, and walking ability before we then concentrate on his left elbow. The elbow gives him pain when he tries to bend or straighten it, thus affecting his balance. This will be looked at as soon as possible. In the meantime he continues with his physiotherapy of manipulation, exercises, electric shocks, and Tens machine. He also has speech therapy which is concentrating on his breathing and his pronunciation of vowels. Steven has "forgotten" how to breathe correctly after the damage caused to his diaphragm, and having a tracheotomy for so long. So when he speaks he has to make sure he has sufficient breath in order to do so. Normally eople don't have to think like this, it comes naturally, but not for Steven. We have been told that the offending driver has been arrested, whilst walking in Torrevieja. It's unbelievable to think that owing to the amount of time we go to town, we may have been in the same cafe as him, or even allowed him to cross the road. Initially this information was overwhelming to Steven but he's now happy that the driver is in custody. We have no further information, other than, if convicted, he will receive no more than 9yrs in prison for offences connected with the accident, including the false documents and the running away. Steven has had a medical examination with the car's insurance company. This will be repeated in a couple of months.
Best regards Terry