My left foot, or now I have time and excuse to start blogging

I thought of titling this post 'My Left Foot' on the grounds that it will, hopefully, be a tale of triumph over adversity. On reflection not only has it been done before, but the whole tale was better and more worthy.

I'll be honest, all this business of soul baring by blog is a little alien to me, the idea of a daily diary of life's trivia bores me. Do you really want to know what my day consists of? trust me you don't. But then, as I'm on the precipice of having about 3 months off work maybe now is the time to 'express my 'inner me' or 'find myself'.

Let me explain. Later this month I'm off to hospital for some surgery. Not life threatening, at least it's not planned to be, but significant orthopaedic surgery all the same. For many years I've been robust and healthy; I'm still healthy, in fact very healthy to the point that I feel a bit of a cheat. However - here's where the palms of my hands start to sweat and my insides start to shiver - I do have a lurking suspicion that this surgery is going to surprise me and my body.
Blogging is only one of a long list of things I plan to do whilst not at work, friends tell me howdever that I simply will not have the energy to do it all. Hah! we'll see. If there isn't another post on this blog for some time you'll know who was right.

Despite my bullish confidence in a positive outcome, I have become increasingly anxious for the following reasons:

1. Each time a different doctor looks at my ankle he - they have all been male, orthopaedic surgery seems to be quite a masculine type of surgery - says appreciatively,
"My, that is bad isn't it, tut, tut"

2. Each time a doctor tells me about the surgery they say,
"You know, you must expect some considerable pain..."
Why do they keep saying that?

3. A number of independent witnesses, when told of my procedure have airily volunteered the following information,
"Oh, I've heard tendon grafts are really painful"

4. I have not been in hospital, as a patient, since I was a child.

5. In an earlier career I was often in hospital, I was a nurse.

Do you begin to get the picture?

Watch this space for updates and enjoy reading as we delve deep into the world of pain, hospitals and nurses (sounds like the start of a dark novel, hmm perhaps I'll write that instead of blogging).