Issues with my Leg

Well it’s not really my left leg that's causing the issues, but that's certainly where I'm feeling it. My left hip (Abductor Longus, then TFL and now ITB) has been giving me problems since we were in India last year when we trekked 2-3kms straight down the mountain when our Guide got lost, but these have been bearable. Then at the end March this year I thought I had better go and see a specialist about this as in Alaska we've planned to do quite some easy hiking.

The specialist doctor sends me of to have an MRI on my hip and part of this process is injecting a die into the hip joint to separate the joint so they can get good pictures of it. This is where it went pair shaped.

I tell you, this was a new experience in pain for me. They had to get a wheelchair for me after this injection. And it hasn’t been good since. I have to use a walking stick to get around now. I can't stand still for any length of time, longer than 5 minutes is unbearable. I can't walk any distance, even with the walking stick. Saturday 2 weeks before departure we took Bailey for an easy walk, I made it 1km before my hip gave up. I then had to hobble home another 1km. I should have sat on the side of the road and got Jayne to come and pick me up in a car.

The doctors and Physio have tried everything to get me mobile, but nothing seems to work. Everything they tried backfired. One week out they had me test some pain killers so I could actually get a pain free night’s sleep, but these just didn’t work and left me feeling as if I've had way too many beers, but not in a good way! I've had a cortisone injection into my hip, which was guaranteed to give relief, which worked for 2 days and then it was worse than before the injection. This had all the doctors stumped, and they even got close to sending me to hospital to check for staph infection from the injection!

The trip has been on and off nearly every day over the 3 weeks prior. The specialist said I was ok to go Tuesday before. We've even arranged a wheelchair at every airport on the trip as I just wouldn’t be able to cope with the queues at customs and baggage claims etc. So I’m now one of those passengers that go zooming around the airports in a wheelchair and get to jump the queues and all. Just like a right old person!

This worked really well in Sydney airport and also Shanghai arriving here.  This is just a fantastic service.