No Pain No Gain

-

Hill Climbing on the Coast to Coast Cycleroute in 2010
It's ten days since I had surgery for malignant melanoma on my left thigh.  So what has been happening?

There has been an overwhelming supportive response from friends and an encouraging 2000+ blog visitors from all over the world who have seen advice on signs of concerning skin changes and self checks.

My scar has been healing slowly and I have been able to do more in the last few days looked after my wife who has been a star.

However as a doctor I have not been a patient patient!  I was keen to get up and around early despite advice from the anaesthetist to take it easy; in the first few days I crashed and burned both times when I went out too soon!

Extra time has been a bonus. Lying on the sofa with my leg up I have become more geeky searching for parts to repair my mountain bike and tweeting more on mens health and health advice topics.

Yesterday I felt increased tingling pains in my leg and found that my stitches had come apart in the middle of the scar where it had been very tight. Today I was really limping and the scar looked infected so I started on some antibiotics and went back on the pain killers which I had ditched because of unwanted side effects!  Oh well - no pain, no gain.

Managing my expectations has been the hardest part, as when I awoke from the anaesthetic I felt the best I have ever felt, but since then the hard graft of the mental battle has started - trying to keep busy without doing too much, dealing with impatience to get back on my bike and out running. The wettest April for years has helped as there was little to do outside!

Every time I take a little step forward I gain more of my life back as I knew it; then the challenges of pain, boredom, infection and immobility have to be wrestled with as they occasionally rear their heads.

In all of this  I can see the hand of my Creator at work - even down to my surgeon sharing our faith, timing with my wife on maternity leave and able to look after me, spending more time with my 9 month old daughter seeing her get 2 new teeth and learn to push a trolley; we have a great Church community and friends here in York supporting us. God is good.

Dr Ben Sinclair Linked In Profile
Twitter: Follow @menshealthtips 
About Sinclair Health Ltd

Comments

Post a Comment

Please leave constructive comments/links here. I will try to respond as soon as possible.
Your comment will not be shown if deemed offensive or inappropriate.

Popular posts from this blog

Whole Man Theory

-
Image
The Integrated Health Pyramid Copyright   Sinclair Health Limited 2011 Back in Medical School in 1998 I had a strange dream one night and woke up with this image of a blue equilateral pyramid in my mind. I wrote it down and discussed it with my friend now a GP Dr Michael Bazlinton. I nicknamed this diagram the Integrated Health Pyramid and it underpins my practise. Back then I often talked to colleagues about what used to be called holistic medicine - treating the person and the physical problem, not just seeking disease but aiming to balance all areas of life to create positive wellbeing which in turn underpins good health. I had a vision of a multidisciplinary clinic with all the services required for integrated health under one roof revolving around a primary care base. My dream clinic would comprise of General Practise, visiting medical specialties, Osteopathy and Acupuncture for physical conditions, with internal referrals to Mental Health in the form of Psycho
Read more

My Melanoma Scar Story

-
Amazingly I am now back in the comfort of my own home, sitting on the sofa and watching "In the night garden" with my daughter.  Mr Dewar the surgeon just called to check everything was going OK and to explain what happened while I was asleep - they took 2 nodes from the groin and he put in 3 layers of stitches into the leg wound and a lot of local anaesthetic. A call at home from the surgeon - that's what I call service! After the anaesthetic I awoke feeling remarkably refreshed, like when you've had the perfect amount sleep in the afternoon. My surgeon did a fantastic job of blending the scar into the normal tension lines of my leg skin, so that when I move it doesn't pull or stretch the internal stitches.  This is however not the finished product and he explained that a large leg scar can be uncomfortable to carry with movement and tightening over the years. Because I am very fair skinned the scar is likely to end up rather purple, so I have to come up
Read more

Integrated Health Pyramid Model of Health

-
Image
The concept of wellbeing and the inclusion of the Spiritual realm of health as a source of strength and balance are now more widely accepted in modern western culture and medicine, unlike when I first conceived of the pyramid more than 20 years ago , when spiritual care was nothing more than a nod towards the patients belief system. I was just embarking on my career as a GP entrepreneur back in 2011 when I last wrote of the Integrated Health Pyramid and my outlook and practise have undergone a few upgrades and bolt on interests since then. Creating space for new projects gave birth to new opportunities and experiences; these have shaped and refined my integrated health model further, as has working in personal and corporate health sector. Here is the refined version of the pyramid model, which currently represents an ugrade to the traditional Bio-Psycho-Social medical model: The Integrated Health Pyramid helps patients and clinicians look at the whole picture of health o
Read more