Aching knee and very sore tooth.

Kevin had his operation on Monday - arthroscopy and both medial and lateral meniscectomy in the right knee. In at 0800 hrs and back home by 1245hrs, feeling woozy and nauseous. Poor lad, he had a bad night (typical reaction to a general anaesthetic) and so did I.

He is using ice packs four times a day to reduce the swelling and of course, can't drive until the knee is stable but he can (and indeed, must) put weight on it and do the recommended physiotherapy exercises as soon as he is able. The sobering thing is that even though they have operated, the meniscectomies are likely to lead to further joint deterioration and ultimately a replacement knee joint as arthritis sets in.

It's a bugger, getting older! Mind you, the alternative ain't so hot either.

My problem is painful but easily- if expensively - sorted. I have a Cerec attached to my top premolar - well, actually, I don't because the damned thing pinged off when I was using those dinky little TePe brushes as instructed by the dental hygienist! This will be the third time that it has to be put back and the second in under a year - so much for it staying in place for three years!

It was done when I was in full time employment and could afford a comprehensive dental plan; I can no longer afford the full plan and am even having to scrimp to save enough to get a filling done (no NHS dentists around here, sadly) which is going to cost the best part of £125.00. The tooth with the Cerec is on the top left of my mouth but the tooth that needs filling - because it is worn and there is an irritating gap where food gets painfully trapped - is on the bottom right. As a consequence, chewing on either side is currently difficult and painful.

The filling is one thing - but I think the Cerec should be put back FOC - it is supposed to stay put for three years and I don't chew bones, break nuts with my teeth or even eat toffees any more, so it isn't anything that \I have done, except to follow my prescribed oral hygiene routine.

Getting back to Kevin's knee, we changed the dressings today and so far the operation sites look very neat - he should have very little scarring. He goes in two weeks to have the practice nurse check the sutures but apart from that, he is left to his own devices as far as physio is concerned.

And my errant Cerec will be glued back in place at mid-day today, so I can at least eat on one side without pain!

Motivation regained!

As I explained in an earlier post, what with the house move and Kevin's looming knee operation, plus a nasty arthritis flare-up and the fact that I have not been happy with either my tutor or my progress on A230 this year, I had elected to defer my Open University studies until October.

I really DID try to continue reading The Romantics, but was getting nowhere, so I put all the books to one side and took a "holiday" away from them. In the meantime, I bought some books that have helped me to get my head round Wordsworth and Shelley, and a very useful book on Literary Criticism.

The house that we had hoped to buy has been sold - sadly not to us, but we have just had a firm offer on our house and everything is moving forward. We have also had our offer accepted on a cottage which is not in Devon after all, but in Somerset. It is smaller than "The One" in Devon, but actually ticks more boxes, so it is to be hoped that the very short chain (our buyers, us and the vendors) will remain firmly linked and we will be settled well before I start my two OU modules.

So now that (D.V.) we won't be spending time away house-hunting, I can get back to reading the A230 set texts and the module textbooks - never read any James Joyce, so I'm looking forward to The Dubliners, as well as tackling Wuthering Heights (again) and Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four. Still to come, Robert Louis Stevenson's  The Beach of Falesá, Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, then The Emigrants and The Lonely Londoners along with poetry by Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac and Elizabeth Bishop

I have watched Metropolis, which is also part of the module materials.After rather childishly giggling at the hero's awful knickerbockers and the exaggerated facial expressions that were (of course) part and parcel of silent films, I concluded that this wonderfully distopian experience could well be left until I was in a more serious mood!

So all of this reading should distract me from the stresses of the house-selling and buying experience - I'll let you know how THAT is working out for me :)