I have had the second operation and all is apparently well with my injury. After 8 weeks of non weight baring the muscles have wasted and I am suffering from what they call plaster disease. (Weakened bones, muscles, tightened tendons and ligaments.) I am currently learning to walk, for the third time in my life.

I don't think I have told you this, but I had some bad luck as a child. I have been hit by a car on two separate occasions and I have been in four car accidents where the car I was in was either hit by another car, or the car hit something else. I was only at fault when I was hit by the cars.

The first occasion was the worst one. I was three. My older brother and sister were already at a fair at the school, my mother took me to the school in the afternoon to take part in it. I travelled to the fair sitting on my mother's lap in the front seat while a friend drove. When the car stopped I could see my brother and sister on the other side of the road, calling out to me and my mum put me on the sidewalk and went to climb out of the car herself and by the time she stood up, I was already on the road. The door handle of the car hit me on the forehead when it passed me. We joke that I really hit the car. It didn't hit me. My mother picked me up put me back in the car and we went to the hospital. I was unconscious for a few hours and had head x-rays and other tests but they all came out clear. I just had a huge lump on my forehead that took ages to go away. I was sent home that night even thought I wouldn't walk. For well over a month I wouldn't walk. I regressed to crawling around everywhere. My mother had to take me for more brain x-rays because there were not the you beaut tests they have today, and when the x-rays showed nothing out of the ordinary, I just had to learn to walk again. Maybe with the hit to the head my balance was affected. I don't remember much of it, except seeing my sister and brother, the grass on the curb, the brown car right in front of me, the pain, then crawling up my nanna's drive after we got home from the hospital. I cannot remember why I didn't walk. I just couldn't.

And now after not being allowed to walk for just those 8 weeks, I have to learn to walk once again. The surgeon said after about 4 weeks I should have found a 'sort of' walk rhythm of my own. It will get better through use. Walking is still painful and when I overdo it, it swells up something awful. I have a tens machine for the pain and ice bags for the swelling. I am trying not to overdo it, but honestly, I am so damn impatient. I just want my life back.

Mac is going through another bloody time at work. We hardly see each other but after a period when we moved away from each other and Mac felt that He could not be what I needed Him to be, we have come together in a way that is wholly enveloping. I decided that O/our house should be the place that He comes to for respite from the pressure of the world and the thing is, when I make Him happy, I am happy and so I make Him happier. An upward cycle! Mac is managing to smile and relax at the end of each day which gives Him the energy to face the next day, and the next, until we come to a weekend and we have lots of time to be a family.

Now if only I could walk!