Well on the Mend

Just a month since my near fatal accident.   I am either dead and this is just a dream, or I am alive, well, counting my blessings and recovering remarkably well thanks to  lots of amazing NHS people, family and friends.

When I suffered my fall I was on the cusp of one of my already overdue visits to the barbers in Settle.   That was delayed by a month and my hair was becoming spectacularly long, where it had not been shaved off for stitching of wounds  and for incisions for the neck operation.   Settle has the benefit of a good old-fashioned gents barbers shop run by business partners Duncan and Ian.

  Like everything else in Settle it is just walking distance away from home.   Yesterday Duncan made a home visit for that long overdue haircut:

Settle being the place it is he had heard of my brush with eternity and he is well used to sorting out the hairy aftermaths of skull injuries.   The facial bruising has disappeared and the resulting haircut, though shourter than normal, is designed to ensure that when I make gradual re-appearances in Settle in a couple of weeks will look like business-as-usual, hairwise.

I am hitting milestones by the day.   Today I washed, shaved and dressed myself and walked unaided* from bed to office.  * I still carry my NHS stick though but can definitely envisage being rid of it very soon.

Yesterday I was visited by local (Airedale) NHS physio and occupational therapists, which felt like a seamless hand over of those two vital disciplines from Preston Royal to Airedale.   Pat was also able to hand me over to Airedale's orthopaedic consultant Mr Thomas from Preston's Mr Howell, an arrangement agreed before I was discharged from Preston.

Another of yesterday's very welcome visitors was one of FoSCL's Clerical Tendency, Rev Canon John Bearpark.