Steve has undergone the operation on his left elbow yesterday. Following the operation Steve is now back at Chorley Hospital and resting. Pauline Steve's Fiancee has told us that the operation went according to plan with the elbow joint being operated on and loose bone fragments cleaned from around the area. We do not know yet if Steve will require further operations on this elbow but we are hoping that this will not be the case. He has to return to the hospital where he had the op done to have it checked in 2 weeks time. The elbow has you would expect is swollen at the moment, bandaged and aching. Steve wants to thank those that assisted him in reducing the time he had to wait from 18 weeks to several days to get this surgery done.

Steve will now have approx 70 degrees of flexion in his left arm and hopefully with more physio this will extend to enable him to fully straighten his arm.

Some more positive news is that some of the deep scar tissue in his right leg has broken up which has allowed Steve to fully straigthen his right leg. This has made his walking a little easier and sitting down and standing up easier to. Today he walked for 25 minutes non stop. Along with Pauline who was pushing his wheel chair in case he got tired Steve walked from his hospital room down to the hospital shop to buy some chocolate. He found his way there without help from Pauline and used the hospital lift to get down to the ground floor where the shop is. After buying his choccy supply he walked back to his room unaided. Pauline said he did fantastic and was chuffed with himself.

Steve is at the moment resting in his room. Content with the fact that he has had the op on his elbow done and with a belly full of chocolate.

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.

We went and paid Steve a visit on Tuesday evening this week. Steve was a little tired when we first got there and he wasn’t his usual self. He explained that he just felt drained and just wanted to go home. He told us of the irritation his left elbow was causing him because he couldn’t straighten it properly and that the operation might take up to 18 weeks to be done. We had known previously about this time scale and had spoken to Pauline about it. Pauline has made the decision that Steve is definitely not waiting 18 weeks to have this operation and has arranged to go private and so get it sorted much sooner. We obviously support Pauline in what she is doing for our Steve and will assist her where we can. Unfortunately the hand specialist cannot work on Steve’s left hand until the left elbow is sorted out so this has also prompted Pauline to take this decision.

While we were there Shaz got her brother out of the chair and he did the obligatory several times around the ward. His walking is still unsteady but is getting better. When Steve came back into his room and sat down Pauline showed us his back and how that was improving. The burns on his shoulders are looking more pink and normal now as are the areas where the skin was stripped off his back and his sides to provide the grafts onto his burns. Steve told us the areas were still sensitive but not as painful as they have been in the past.

Steve cheered up when he told us he had been visited that day by a couple of lads from the Fire Service. One of them Mike O’Neill who had organised the Charity All Stars football match brought Steve a match programme and other items from the day including a DVD of the game. Steve really enjoyed the visit and couldn’t believe what had gone on. He said it would be great if they could hold another game this summer and he would definitely be there to watch and present the trophy hopefully next time to Team Salford. He once again wanted me to thank everyone who had been involved with the football match and everyone who had turned up to watch.

Pauline had arrived by this time and we had a chat about the up coming appointment with the consultant who will be dealing with Steve’s left elbow. Pauline also said Steve was waiting for news about his Hearing aids and the result from the Neurology test he had done on his right ankle 2 weeks ago. Steve and the family are really hoping for good news about this ankle.

By this time Steve was getting sleepy. We said our goodbyes and left Pauline to get Steve ready for bed. This takes sometime due to Pauline having to rub cream in to Steve’s skin and then replace the pressure bandages with the help of the nurses. Both Shaz and I have not seen Steve looking so fed up for a while now. We know he puts a brave face on at times for visitors but Pauline has told him he mustn’t hide his emotions has this will not do him any good. Steve’s a brave bloke and has a lot of pride but we are concerned for him and the fact that he has been in hospital now nearly 8 months.

Ending this blog on a more cheerful note Steve’s stair lift has been fitted and he’s had go. Many thanks to the fire fighters charity for purchasing and paying for it to be installed. I told Steve I’ll fit low profile wide wheels to it and go faster stripes. I said to Steve he reminded me of the Peter Kay character in phoenix nights when Steve was using the stairlift!!!!

Gary.

Shaz and I had a great visit with Steve tonight. He was in good form and we spoke about his mums visit which was this afternoon and how much Steve had enjoyed his mum and her friend Pete being there. It was Shaz's birthday on Monday just gone. Pauline and Steve had got her a lovely pressy and card. It brought a tear to shaz's eye when she read the card because Steve had been practising writing it out for her and although it is still painful for him to do he had managed to write something special inside.

While we were with Steve we did the usual several laps around the ward and Steve did several step ups onto his step box. He has now progressed to stepping up so that both feet are on the box and then stepping back down again. He has to take it slowly but its another indication that he is regaining strength in his leg muscles.

He has had is in growing toenail sorted and he feels better for that now. He is able once again to put his right foot down in a more normal manner when he is walking. The results from the examination on his right ankle are due back soon and we are hoping for good news. The Hospital as an extra measure are going X-ray the ankle area to make sure there's nothing sinister going on in there to do with the muscles or bones.

Pauline has told Shaz and I that the stairlift is due for being installed any day now. This will be good news for Steve has it will mean he can spend more time at home which will lead to him being permanently discharged from Hospital hopefully in the near future. Medical care will continue for some time to come but this will be delivered as an outreach type of care.

We left Steve tonight to get his head down and get some rest. He is going home again on Saturday and is really looking forward to that again. The visit was really good. Seeing Steve laughing and joking with us both was great even though once again I got some stick off him for various reasons mainly to do with the wearing of certain thermal garments. I don't mind and he's bigger than me.

Hopefully we'll see you all at the Football match this Sunday.