Lights, Camera, Action.....

Good Evening my lovelies..

As the curtain falls on another day I sit here in the hope that by this time tomorrow i'll have the ability to natter and chatter almost normally. And,  I really want to test out the new denture on some fish and chips from the amazing chippy up the road (Farrows on the Wellsway, in case you wondered). Imagine being able to eat solid food in comfort, chatting without holding your nose half the time and not fishing lumps of your dinner out of your nose 2 hours later. What an idealist I am...

So, heard from the lovely Catherine in the Press office at Royal Marsden today and they want to run an article in 'RM Magazine', which is the quarterly(?) lifestlye and news magazine the Royal Marsden publish. I've given a couple of sentences on how I'm getting on/my experience. Obviously made it sound like I've been having a ball, which isn't strictly true, but the service I've had in the hospital and the clinical and nursing teams has been incredible, so I focussed on that. Off to get my photo taken at some point so my mug is viewed far and wide.

They also confirmed that Lawrence McGinty from ITN will be interviewing me next week for the News at 10 feature. I think they're coming to my house, rather than doing it at the hospital, but this is yet to be firmed up. I think we're going to formalise things tomorrow. 

It's easy to sit here with an imperfection an feel like this hasn't been a success. My biggest personal motivator to have this operation was to close the hole/defect in my mouth. As it turns out, this is the only thing that hasn't gone 100% according to plan, so it feels like I'm still a long way from being sorted. However, when I consider that I've had my whole fibula, some muscle, 2 big veins and a big chunk of skin removed from my left leg, a skin graft taken from the top and placed in the hole in the bottom of my leg. Then the fibula, the muscle and the skin sewn/grafted/chiseled into my mouth, dental implants added and the veins tunneled down the side of my face, into my neck and then spliced into blood vessels so I have a live blood supply, the fact a few stitches haven't taken is trivial by comparison to what has been a success. My leg is growing inside my head just fine, even the hair that was growing has now stopped doing so, which feels much more normal than having a furry roof on my mouth. All told, we're 95% there as far as surgery goes and the only bit left is pretty straightforward, especially by comparison to everything else I've had done. So, to focus on the positives for the article and the news isn't difficult despite my bleak outlook at times. 

My foot hurts though. Annoyingly it's sore and swollen again today. I wish I knew what was triggering the problem so I could avoid it. Maybe I do, maybe it's just the over exersion from the weekend taking it's toll. I quite like writing that my wild weekend has left me as damaged goods on a Monday, it makes me feel more normal, back in familiar territory and very good company (most of you lot felt the same today, don't even pretend that you didn't!). So, here's to sober excess and long may it continue (apart from the 'sober' bit)...

One Love

Jez

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