Cold snap

Here in the UK we are currently having a cold snap, the snow would probably be coped with quite well by most countries but here it seems to bring things to a standstill. I have not been too bothered by the weather although lots of plans have gone out of the window most have been easily rearranged or postponed for now. The thing that I did notice was my foot hurting a bit, this is not a surprise as I have long documented how the cold exacerbates my condition and how I have been trying to combat this, see the previous post here:

1) http://ledderhose.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/a-refresh-of-things-that-help-with-cold.html

I am not sure if it is the combination of having played 5-6 hours of badminton in 3 days and the cold or what but my foot has hurt again a little.  I am impressed with how little it has been hurting despite the cold weather and snow but it is good to have a reminder that my foot it not fully better and will probably never be perfect again. I need to bear in mind the frailties of my foot before I start playing too much badminton, for the coaching course I am going to extremes for 1 day and I think that is as far as I can let it go.

How was the holiday for my foot?

As I have made aware I went on holiday recently and here are some of the things that happened in that time that I felt were worth mentioning because they related to my foot.

Cottage we stayed in

1) I still really have large limitations.

On the Friday before going away I needed to get a train ticket in my lunch break to ensure that I would not miss the train from having to queue. This is a 20 minute trip each way and 10 minutes standing for the queue to go, at the end my lump hurt a bit but my ankles were killing me. This was without the stick.

2) I still have to be careful about not stepping on things.

On holiday there was a shoe mat as it gets quite muddy outside. What I did not realise though was that this had quite a large lip on the side, I stepped on this with my bad foot and only just missed my lump, I still had to sit down for a couple of minutes to let the pain ease, if it had hit the lump who knows with how painful it was I might have cried!

3) Cold is not good.

As I mentioned just before going away cold is still not good, the floors in the cottage we stayed in got very cold (I am used to under-floor heating) therefore my feet got cold when out of my thermal socks, this meant my arch hurt but I really couldn't place the pain in the lump as much as I cold last year.

I think that is everything that springs to mind, thanks again everyone who gets in touch, over the holiday I was contacted by 6 people (some old some new) and it was really nice to get those messages. I have also noticed a slight increase in the number of Google +1 clicks the site has had (the little red +1 button on the right) which is great. 

In the cold, cold night

So this morning I felt a bit of pain in my foot, nothing much really and nothing to be concerned about, after all radiotherapy is not a cure but rather a treatment that is meant to help alleviate the condition and alleviating it is. I was just that this morning my feet were very cold and as with last year I am noticing that this still tends to cause some pain in my bad foot, whether this is because the tendon tightens and this then causes strain on what is left on the lump who knows? (Guess I a going to have to wear warm shoes to do what I did in the picture)

Anyway I am still in shorts and working hard on various Ledderhose and BDS things. We also had the 12 week scan this morning and got to see the heart beating, the stomach and bladder were full and it had two little hands and feet. It was great, so come 20th May, or there about there will be a little Mr or Miss Manley around the place. Can't wait to teach them all about Ledderhose, maybe I should start with animal noises though? 

Dupuytren's in the paper, weight loss and cold feet!

Several little things to talk about today but nothing too major. 

Diet: 

First of all on my battle with beating the bulge that is my belly. I am happy to say that in the last 3 weeks I have lost a stone and gone from struggling to do 5 miles on the exercise bike to pumping out 10 miles yesterday and I am staying highly motivated towards losing this weight. 

Cold:

Ok so I don't really feel the cold but have reported many times on how the cold makes my foot worse and this last weekend I was at the cricket in Cardiff where it always seems to be cold, towards the end of the day my feet were feeling freezing even if the rest of me felt ok. My foot was hurting a bit but nothing like I would expect for this kind of cold and the next day my foot was perfectly ok. 

The next thing nicely follows on the the cricket bit above. 

Aggers has Dupuytren's: 

Anyone here who watches cricket on a regular basis will have heard of Aggers (Jonathan Agnew) he is involved a lot with the cricket and comes across as a nice guy. Well the Daily Mail here in the UK picked up on this and as pointed out by the British Dupuytren's Society this was published over the weekend. 

Aggers said that this has been his biggest test and I think it is well worth reading the article to see his point of view on this condition. 

Aggers in the Mail.

It is interesting to hear that he thinks that the repeated trauma of getting hit on the hands by the cricket ball may have at least partially caused the onset of this condition and comments that others such as Gooch and Gower have it, but to be honest I think that the more important factor is that he has a family history of this with a cousin also having the condition so it is likely in his genetics.