Steve has been visited this week by family and friends. He has thoroughly enjoyed all these visits and has said it’s great that people want to keep coming along and seeing him.

Shaz and I went to see him at home this weekend. We spent an evening having a good laugh, eating Chinese food and having a glass or two of Guinness. Steve and I spent some time talking shop. Steve is interested in what is going on at work and talking about work helps to keep him involved. We got to see Steve using his stair lift which he has nicknamed the Turbo Terminator on account of its super slow speed of operation! We had a good laugh at Steve’s expense watching him going up and down the stairs on the lift. He’s very grateful though for the stair lift has it makes life a lot better when he is on his home visits. Steve was hoping that he may have been home permanently this coming week but we do not expect that to be the case now and he may have to remain in hospital just a little while longer.

Steve’s grafts are still healing well. The grafts on his buttocks are doing really well now. The skin above and at the sides of his ears is also looking much better these days and the dead skin around these areas has all gone now. He is currently waiting for his hearing aids to be fitted and so bring his hearing back up to a level which will make his quality of life better.

Steve continues to press on with his walking and step ups. He has had the results back from the tests he had carried out recently on his right foot, ankle and leg. The results have revealed that his foot or ankle is not broken or that any nerves have been trapped which is good news. What the Doctors feel may have happened is that the severe burn damage to the rear of Steve’s legs may have caused the nerves to separate which has interrupted the messages from the brain which tells the foot ankle and leg to move. The Doctors feel that if Steve keeps making repeated movements through walking etc then the messages from his brain may find a new path which gives him greater and more normal movement in this area. It may be that the damage nerves rejoin in the correct way which would be better. Only time will tell, but we expect it to be many months for this to happen before Steve knows.

Steve’s left elbow operation is going ahead this coming week on the 25th. Prior to that he is at Wythenshawe Hospital all day on Monday 23rd to meet with the Burns Team. This day is eight months on from the incident. The following day he will be resting and being prepped for the operation on Wednesday. On Wednesday Steve and Pauline will be travelling to another Hospital to have his operation and this will involve an overnight stay. Thursday and Friday will see Steve resting following his operation.

Steve has kindly asked that no one visits him this week. With all that is going on he does not want to be tired etc when people come to visit him because he wants visitors to have a good visit plus he does not know exactly where he will be on Tuesday Thursday or Friday.

Steve and his family are hoping that the work on his elbow will only take one operation, but we will have to wait until the surgeon goes in and has a look. It may mean more operations should the damage be greater than expected.

Steve is so pleased he does not have to wait the 18 weeks that was first talked about and this operation will lead into further operations on his hands, but he needs this operation on his left elbow prior to having further surgical work done on his left hand.

Pauline and Steve want me to tell everyone that the money that has been collected and given to Steve is being put to good use. Pauline recently purchased for Steve items of mobility equipment. One piece of equipment is what snow boarder’s use out of season to keep their lower body strength and mobility / flexibility up. Steve is finding using the board very beneficial to exercising his legs, ankles and feet and say’s he can already feel the strength in his legs improving quicker. So a big thank you to all of you for again helping with Steve’s recovery.

I’ll update you all again later this week when Steve has had his operation.

Gary.