An Eye Update

As hoped Doug was discharged from Livingston St Johns last Sunday (5th Feb) and is safely resettled at home.

Douglas has now had all the staples removed from his head wound (if that's the correct term) - all 47 of them!! He asked the nurse if he could have them to take home. Why she said .... want to use them to staple my documents he said!!!! Now that is Douglas for you ........

He assures us all that removal was not at all painfull, thanks to the skill of nurse and her wonderful line of chat :-) I suspect both Sheena and I 'felt' it more !!

The healing process is now well under way although, unfortunately, a small part is weeping rather badly which means repeated dressing replacement and two weeks of a powerful anti-biotic. All a bit of a pain really.
We have daily visits by the District Nurse who does the dressing change. This is a great relief since, to us, any supturation looks dramatic and worrying and she can assess and evaluate much better.
Things are getting better day by day.


The important part, the eye, is fine and looking good and the specialist is very pleased. Doug goes back to see her in a couple of weeks.


To look at Doug now, aside from the head dressing, it is hard to believe that he has had such intrusive surgery to the head and face. I think we had all expected much more bruising and swelling - a tribute to the skill of the plastic surgeon I feel.


He has coped really well with the whole procedure and can still have a good crack about things like 'there are not many that have a tap in the heid' !
He also jokes about how difficult it is to bandage the head, especially from ear to ear! The nurses have come up with an ingenious solution to holding dressings in place! A pair of elasticated mesh pants over the head, with the leg openings knotted!!!! Keep this quiet ....... Doug will do me an injury if he hears it is public knowledge :-(
(Superman wore his underwear over his trousers ..... SuperDuper man wears them over his head - ho, ho, ho - yeah right!!!!)


In a couple of weeks I think he'll be able to get back to his gym exercises and his bike training but we'll just have to be a bit careful not to overdo it initially.


In the meantime he is looking forward to being able to wear his reading specs comfortably ..... a bit sore behind the ears right now ...... and being able to read using his Kobo ebook reader again. As he says, if it takes much longer, he'll have to start at the beginning of the book again!! Exageration I'm sure, but I can understand his frustration.
By the bye, the Kobo Reader is a wonderful thing for anyone who has problems reading conventional books because the font type and size can be tailored to that most suitable for the reader. We were able to find the right size and font using his laptop computer and then download them to the Reader.
Whether or not this was the intention of the Kobo software folk ... VERY WELL DONE. You have just made reading once again an enjoyable passtime for one young man.

Iain (the auld yin)