Hopefully by the time you read this, or because of it, I will have done a newsletter to my regulars saying I won’t be at Narrow Gauge North 2025 having had to withdraw at short notice. I felt more of an explanation is required.

Its all Mel Gibson’s fault!

30 years ago, this coming September, as I had not long moved to York a load of us from work went to the Odeon Fleapit across the road to watch the 4 hour tedium that is Braveheart. [Cinema still there but now an Everyman with comfy seats].

At the end of the tedium I went to stand up but my right leg had got bored much earlier and abandoned me. This proved to be a deep vein thrombosis, initially misdiagnosed, eight weeks in hospital and permanently screwed circulation in my right leg. Thus started a  30 year on/off saga with problems with my right leg and it was all Mel Gibson’s fault! *

–* in the run up to the DVT I had also done a long haul flight from the far east and spent a week bouncing around the outer Hebrides in a yacht but Mel was the most immediate culprit – and its funnier.

The upshot of the screwed circulation is that my calf swells and contracts on a daily basis. Skin isn’t meant to do this so its tissue thin and fragile. It gets one hell of a regime of creams, bathing and skin care but every once in awhile it gets away, cracks and gets infected. The results are very painful, the treatment is antibiotics and compression hosiery. When it goes properly wonky it results in leg ulcers which up the pain to “can’t walk”,” can’t sleep”, “can’t concentrate” levels of agony.  The flare ups also appear to linked to “excursions” with the INR level resulting from the daily dose of warfarin I take……

INR – International Normalized Ratio – is a measure of how long it takes your blood to clot. I guess a score of 1 is for normal folk. Mine is supposed to be kept between 2&3 and is checked regularly in a test which involve bleeding onto a chip plugged into a machine that whirrs for a bit then goes “Bing” and announces a result. Now the flaw I am finding with this is that if they start you on Warfarin you get a test done a week later, they’ll then do another a week after that and if its in range they’ll go to two weeks, then four out to twelve weeks between tests. If at any time you go out of range the periods drop until it stabilises again. The flaw is that if you get to twelve week tests and for some random reason your INR goes haywire then it can be well after any damage is done before its spotted.

Seems I am quite stable at getting up to 12 week tests but also appear to be prone, about once a year to sudden excursions of my INR going higher than 3 which doesn’t get caught until its too late.

Warfarin is also rat poison (I’ve found that medics don’t like you calling it that) and it works by thinning your blood to the point where skin, veins and arteries can’t keep it in.

My skin being in the state it is isn’t very good at keeping the blood in at the best of times so not long after an INR excursion ulcers appear on my leg that get infected and then take ages to clear up.

If you’re at all squeamish leave now and don’t click the continue reading tab

Now this outbreak of wonky leg has been ongoing since before Christmas and has featured swabs to test for infection that weren’t really needed as it was bloody obvious, several rounds of antibiotics, twice weekly trips to the Coven of Nurses to have the wound cleaned and dressed.

-* I remember when I was a lad in Derby when a good night out got better if there were a load of nurses from the nursing school out an about. That was a lot less painful way to meet lots of nurses.

This continues to the this day and was getting better. I was looking forward to Narrow Gauge North this weekend and Boston Lodge next weekend but the leg decided otherwise. The infection has flared up as the week has gone on and it peaked yesterday as show in this first image (just a warm up as its sill clad) but the leg started bleeding in places it shouldn’t, or hadn’t before, had bled through the dressing and compression sock.

It was agony, came close to a trip to A&E, eventually resulted in a sleepless night. Last night (Wednesday) I could barely walk around the house. Despite trying to take an optimistic outlook  I realised that there was no way there would be enough improvement to allow me to pack the car, even over two days, drive and unload at a show, stand for a day and then take it all home again. I am actually that sleep deprived at the moment I wouldn’t trust myself to drive even if the leg didn’t hurt like hell.

It was only fair to make the decision and let Oliver and the NG North team have as much notice as possible

This morning has been another trip to the coven. This time more swabs have been taken, more drugs incoming including some much stronger pain killers and strict instructions to rest with the leg elevated. This last gruesome image is the leg after its been cleaned up and it doesn’t really show up how red and inflamed it is.

So, if you’ve stuck with the tale this far…..

• I hope you enjoy NG North (if you’re going)
• I hope I’ll see you next time
• Please keep buying stuff from my website*

–* Serious note: Do please keep ordering, I am filling and mailing orders just a bit slower than usual. Don’t stop out of some misguided sympathy, as a self employed sole trader there is no sick pay or benefits so no orders = no money!