Raining in Ikea

Mum and I popped to Ikea this afternoon to get a wall shelf and some more drawers for the big cupboard. Unfortunately the wall cupboards were out of stock but we did get the drawers so there is something to do before bed.

DK is not really enjoying nursery much but I guess he will have to get over that starting on Monday just so long as his mum can cope with it as well. In the meantime we will be busy entertaining and going to Farmor's funeral tomorrow. It is always sad when people die, but when they are 93, have had a full life and are not really enjoying life any more, it is about as easy as funerals get.

Summer House

Here are some pictures of the summer house we were in last week.

Kitchen and guests

Mum and Jen arrived yesterday for a week long visit and it is really nice to have them staying. DK has moved into our room so that they can sleep on the futon in his room and it seems that we all slept quite well. DK is continuing his settling into nursery course and seems to be doing well, it helps that there were only 4 kids in his class yesterday because most of them as still on holiday.

Here are the promised kitchen pictures. We are still figuring out where everything should go and MK is denying the fact that we will need a wall cupboard to put cups and glasses in. I guess time will tell...

Back at last

After about 5 weeks away from work, I am back again today and it is like a new school term. I didn't have a new bag or pencil case, but it is the first time I have worn long trousers in several weeks and I have a few jobs to sort out.

Last night MK and I completed the kitchen project (the only remaining job is to screw the counter top in place) and it looks great. I can't believe that we didn't change the units when I did the initial renovation nearly 3 years ago and I can't believe that we didn't put in a fully fitted kitchen from the start. Anyway, the floor went down, the units are in place and all we need to do now is figure out where everything should go.

Mum and Jen are arriving this afternoon for a week long visit and DK is starting he week of settling into nursery before MK returns to work next week so it is all go in our house. I will post some pictures of the kitchen later in the week when I get around to it.

My back is pretty good now, I am still doing a lot of exercises and I will go back to the physio soon to get some more exercises to do to help strengthen my back and hopefully prevent a recurrence. The drive to work this morning felt long and uncomfortable and I can imagine that I will have to stop and stretch on the way if there is traffic.

Spendthrift back in town

I suppose that we didn't go on holiday this year so we have saved quite a lot of money by staying home, but we are making up for it whilst we are here.

The kitchen project is moving ahead as planned, the old cupboards are gone, the filling is done and I fetched the new floor tiles today.

We have also added some extra strage space to the dining room with a cool retro side board that we won at an auction last night. How about a teak side board for 800DKK (£100 of $175 I think)??  We like it a lot.

Then we popped into the bed shop next to the flooring shop to see what bargains they had on offer whilst the whole country is on holiday and the recession is putting off all non essential purchases. The new Tempur bed is being delivered in 3 weeks which we are hoping will be much better than the last bed we bought only 4 years ago.

I nearly forgot, we picked up the new car this afternoon as well. The bank manager is loving us at the moment...

Physio and witch doctor

I had my first appointment with David Bonde yesterday to begin the treatment for my back. I have been getting a lot better over the last week and have not really required any pain killers or had trouble moving around. I have followed advice to avoid sitting down as much as I can so I am still spending my relaxing time lying on the floor, but I can now sit long enough to eat meals.

David gave me a very thorough examination and did a lot of pushing and pulling, twisting and prodding, only some of which was unpleasant.

It seems that the herniated disc is probably not pushing on the nerve any more and he was impresed by how quickly I seem to be recovering. I now have some exercises to do once an hour which are hopefully pushing the herniation back into place and improving my core strength and breating in such a way that will support my back. Apparently some of the pilates techniques we have been using were not helping. Apparently my core strength is not too bad despite doing nothing for a while and he thinks that the prognosis is pretty good for a full recovery. All in all it was good news and I left with a spring in my step (on the right leg anyway).



I am generally feeliung much better, but I still need to take it easy and the only "exercise" I am allowed to take is walking and swimming. I am planning to get myself to the pool again at some point becuase I am risking turning into a giant marshmallow with the current levels of inactivity.

Should we take the wall out

We are thinking about opening the kitchen up into the dining room. Not sure yet, but the cupboards behind the door have gone already...

Taking it easy

We are all taking it easy at the moment. MK has gone shoping with her sister whilst the kids have a day with T&B. That leaves me at home relaxing and doing some preparatory work for out next project which is to take the old cupboards out of the kitchen and replace them with some more usable storage space and a bit more work surface. At the same time we are hoping that opening the room up will give us a bit more space now that we seem to have 2 midgets involved whenever we are cooking.

Ikea has a kitchen design tool which seems to indicate that everything will fit in and I am actually quite taken by the yellow flooring...

We don't really want to do the work now, but as we are all home for a while with no travel plans it seems like a golden opportunity so long as my back holds out.

Life's a beach

I had a chat with my boss yesterday about sick leave and vacation time and we agreed that I would take this week as sick leave and then the next 2 weeks as vacation. That means that I don't start work again until 9th August!

To celebrate we took the reclining car seat mobile to the beach for the day. The boys car seats are over to one side and then I have the passenger seat layed completely flat so that I am more or less next to DK in the back seat. This means that there is no problem for me to be in the car for an hour or so. We had a good time at the beach, it was roasting hot and the water wasn't too cold although there was the usual contingent of jelly fish in attendance.

Tomorrow I have a day off as MK and the boys are going to a local amuzement park and I am not. This morning the place was on the travel news because there were 1-2 mile queues to get in. I think I'm glad to be taking a pass on that one...

Odd July

My back seems to be doing a good job of getting better so I am able to move around and do lots of things that don't involve sitting down or bending over. I am also taking advantage of the fact that the Tour de France is on the television for several hours every day. It's funny that the kids have misteriously developed back ache as well at the moment and have both been working on their hobbling like an old man techniques and lying down to to ease their discomfort...

I think I can acutally take last week as sick leave rather than holiday and therefore take a week off at the start of August when T&B have rented a summer house in Denmark with space for all of us. I can spend some time with everyone at the beach rather than working as I had originally planned and prolong the summer a bit.

Daniel has developed a good appetite so we are expecting him to grow a good biut this summer and it is a nice surprise to have to give him extra helpings of anything other than ice cream.

No pain killers!

I slept well with some pain killers and muscle relaxants last night and just had 600mg of ibuprofen this morning. Since then I have not had anything which is pretty amazing considering what I have been consuming in the last couple of weeks.

I have made an appointment with a physiotherapist for 26th July and until then it is no sitting or bending forward and just getting on with whatever I can unless it hurts. Sounds good to me.

MK and the boys went to the beach today and seem to have had a good time whilst I stayed home and started making some ice cream to christen our new ice cream maker this evening. I am planning for it to be vanilla with crushed maltesers, but I'm not really in charge so J and DK will probably have the final say.

Odd progress

This is the MRI of my spine. You can see that the discs are pushing on the orange coloured nerves (I added some nice white arrows)

Until yesterday afternoon my back had been getting steadily worse to the extent that I could only stand for about 1 minute by that stage and had only slept for a couple of hours each of the last 2 nights. I could stand up sort of straight but gradually got bent forward until I was doubled up and needed to lye down again.

By the end of my shower I was out of standing time and the act of throwing my towel over the shower curtain rail made something happen in my back.

I have never felt pain like it in my life, it made me scream like a little girl and I collapsed on the bed shaking violently before hobbling to the living room floor again so that I could get my feet up on a chair. Next step was to call the Dr. She told me to take 2 of my powerful pain killers and said  that she would get some morphine ready for MK to fetch from the pharmacy in a few mintes, she also said that so long as I was in control of my bladder and bowels then it was not an emergency and would ease up. She was right.

The double dose of Dolol more or less nocked me out and I didn't need the morphine. This morning it also seems that things are much much better although I still have some pain in my left leg, I can now stand up and move around and life is rosier.

Next step may be another MRI, but we have to contact the back clinic in Køge.

MRI

I called the Doctor this morning so find out the results from my MRI scan. Apparently I have 2 herniated discs which explains why I have pain in the upper and lower leg. I don't know how they can tell, but I am told that the herniation is receding and I won't need surgery, just physiotherapy.

This morning I weighed myself and was 95.6kg which means I have lost nearly 5kg in a week, unfortunately, I think a lot of it is muscle. In the meantime I will stay on the floor and feeling a bit sorry for myself.

Life sucks

I am really struggling with my back so this is on hold until I can get off the floor, start walking again, get some sleep and not be in constant pain.

No sleep 'til bedtime

I now have an appointment for an MRI scan tomorrow morning through my private health insurance that I get from work. That should shed some light on what the problem is, but I doubt it will have much affect on my situation in the short term.

In the meantime, DK seems to have some sort of food poisoning which is very unlucky considering how little he eats. I suspect that he will be giving us a long night tonight as a result. I don't know how MK is managing to stay on top of everything, but she is doing a fantastic job of looking after us all. More news tomorrow if I find anything out anything interesting.

Bad news

Holiday is cancelled. MK had to take DK for a check up at the doctors and they asked about the holiday plans. When she told them what we were planning she got told off and informed that we would not be insured and should not even consider going.

Looks like 2 weeks at home then...

I should make it clear that we are not going becuase of my back, not DK's check up

Now what?

After another fairly bad night I really struggled to get out of bed this morning and the first 5 minutes or so of hobbling about were excruciating. However, after some pain killers and a bit of a stagger around the house, things started to loosen up and the pain subsided.

It is a rather strange position that I find myself in at the moment, I am working hard to stay in good spirits and maintain a positive attitude despite the fact that 2 weeks ago I was racing my bike and in the best shape I have been in for several years and now I can't tie my shoelaces.

The new plan

• The first thing I have done is to put myself on a strict diet so that I can avoid getting fat whilst getting no exercise at all. My aim is in fact to lose weight so that I put less strain on my back in the future.
• I am aiming to get down below 90kg which was my target last summer to make up for the lost muscle mass as well
• The rest of the bike racing season seems to be written off so I will take some advice from physiotherapists or whoever I have to see in order to make sure that I can get back on my bike in the right way and at the right time
• I am probably going to change my mountain bike from so that I can get some suspension at the back as well as the front and take some of the pressure off my spine
• I will get  proper Retul bike fit done for the start of next season for my road bikes to make sure that my position on the bike is not contributing to my back problems
• I am going to work really hard to make sure that I don't just get over this, but come back stronger than I was when the injury happened.

I'm going to fight back!

On again, off again, on again

I have been at the doctors again this morning after a really bad night of back pain. I am now referred to the hospital for an MRI scan which will/should show where the problem is but doesn't actually do anything in terms of fixing it or helping to fix it or change the treatment so I don't really see the point. Anyway, I'll get it done.

The advice from the doctor was to cancel our holiday as there is no way that I can sit in a car for 14-18 hours for the drive and my initial thought was that we would be staying at home. However, I kept coming back to an idea that I had last night about folding 1/3 of the back seat down and lying down in the car with my knees bent upwards. We had a quick test this afternoon and have decided that we'll give it a go.

This is either genius or insanity, but apparently those are close bedfellows anyway. I am also now taking some more hardcore pain killers which seem to be helping somewhat as they are morphine based.

Happy Birthday DK

2 today

The new mower and haircut

Enjoying a rather large ice cream last week

Off for a bike ride with J

Off

I'm off work and off blogging until this back gets better. There seems to be a small improvement, but it is slow progress