5th May 2012

Hiya, yet again not a lot to tell you. Briefly Steven has been given a 68% incapacity to work entitling him to a pension and all manner of benefits. However, unbeknown to us, we cannot claim these benefits we now have to get a solicitor to do all the ground work to do it for us!!!! However many hoops they give us to jump through we'll do it, Steven must have what he's entitled to. The Government though are doing their utmost to cut down the number of people on benefits, so it could be an uphill struggle, no different to England I suppose. We saw the solicitor Thursday 3rd May, and he has agreed to make the necessary enquiries. Apparently one Social Security department issues their opinion, then we have to visit another department for them to agree or disagree with the first assessment. Steven continues his physiotherapy at the clinic and at home. His appetite has increased, and we can already see the difference in skin tone and general well being. He actually looks forward to eating, preparing it all for himself, unfortunately the food he's doing is so good, we will probably start putting on weight as well. Ref' his physio', at home Monday 30th April, he was outside on his step machine working quite well, when I started chasing the dog around, Steven looked at us (we weren't near him) and due to the halt in his concentration he fell off the step machine, landing on his hip operation area, and his back hitting a flower pot. The floor and flower pot are fine ;-). Steven's only problem was us looking down at him, he's literally had enough of people watching over and caring for him if that makes sense. We are going out for a Chinese Monday night with friends and Steven is going to go to physio' and then afterwards he's going to cross a main road for a coffee to wait for us to finish and fetch him. We've told him our concerns but he insists he wants to do these things, but it's very difficult for us to let go. He's had his second session for his new tattoo, and though I don't like them, it does look good. This is something he wants to do, to inflict pain on himself instead of from the accident, and in any case it takes his mind off the pain for a short time. Next week we start a new round of doctor's appointments about Steven's left foot and ankle. Look up "dropped foot syndrome" if you're interested. In the accident, his leg was almost severed completely between knee and ankle, the scar is huge but clean. As well as bone and extensive muscle damage, nerves were cut which control the action of the ankle and foot. When he puts pressure on his foot, he has a lot of pain from the broken bone deep within the ankle. The biggest problem is that he cannot raise his foot or toes, the front of his foot hangs down permanently. Remember he has to tell each part of his body what to do and that's an added problem because it may be that the problem with his foot could be caused by the motor function of the brain which was damaged. The ankle bone damage is in a dodgy position and may not be able to be operated on. The foot problem may be alleviated by swapping over tendons from one side to the other because it's more important for the foot to be able to lifted than to be pointed downwards, that can come with gravity. Or he can have one of my tendons which he has refused, but if I have to I'll insist. Or he wears a rather large and uncomfortable boot. Or we can try to have an experimental implant in his hip and knee, controlled by a gadget on his belt, which then recognises when the foot is down, and the implant makes the foot come back up. We hope to find out more next Tuesday. Steven’s cousin Ian Wykes successfully made the 12 day trek to Mount Everest Base Camp, although some members of the group didn’t make it and had to hospitalized due to altitude sickness. Well done and thank you Ian. Best regards Terry