{"id":6149,"date":"2025-04-05T12:50:25","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T12:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ngtrains.com\/blog\/?p=6149"},"modified":"2025-04-06T23:03:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T23:03:25","slug":"hoppalong-still-at-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ngtrains.com\/blog\/hoppalong-still-at-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoppalong Still At It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Well, this wasn\u2019t in my plan for Friday!
<\/span><\/p>\n

On the one hand its a complete pain in the leg whilst on the other its something different and possibly progress in the right direction.<\/span><\/p>\n

This whole leg saga kicked off 30 years ago (see previous post) but this outbreak started in December and has been bloody agony throughout. All the nurses at our Doctors, (The Coven) have been brilliant but they’re not specialist wound nurses, some of them are just HCA’s so can only do the basics and then have to seek guidance for more difficult stuff.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once upon\u00a0 a time it would have involved at referral to the lymphedema clinic at York District Hospital, as I was about 12 years ago in a previous outbreak. It was a “world leading” department and my referral resulted in probably the longest trouble free period. Someone decided they didn’t need it and closed it down.<\/span><\/p>\n

N0w the process is that they refer the wound online to a tissue viability specialist who seems to pick things off a list with a pin to try, so far to no avail. Back in my late teens & early twenties meeting so many nurses wa\"\"<\/a>s a dream night out but the problem now is one of consistency as you can see a different one each visit so they can’t tell if its changed since the last time the dressing was changed until one of the rising stars took a picture on her phone (well done Sarah, don’t ever loose your phone, your photo gallery must be pretty gruesome). That made me think that should be a pretty standard thing to do so I have been photographing my leg each time the dressings are changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another problem is that they have their set ideas and each of them has a slightly different view and sometimes I can be telling them about the previous dressing\/treatment\/outbreak\/cure and they’re clearly not listening. I’ve been telling them for weeks that its n0t the ulcer that hurts but all the breaks in the skin around it caused by the dressings and constant compression but they’re not listening and are just in ulcer car mode. There seems to be no recognition that the person with the most experience of my bad leg and the treatments is me!\u00a0 I told one that this September is the 30th anniversary of wonky leg to the response, “I’m only 21”.<\/p>\n

Progress in the right direction?<\/strong> Yesterday I saw a new member of the coven albeit only on alternate Fridays and it was a bit of a revelation. Rachel is a wound care specialist nurse who just deals with things like my wonky leg. I spent an hour with her discussing and creating a care plan and it was a revelation.<\/p>\n