Take Two

Pendle Hill, Lancs - jacket says it all: want to be back South!

I've been allowed to use my left hand for two weeks now and things are coming on in leaps and bounds.  After a few months of no use at all it will take a while to build the strength back up, but I'm already seeing steady and positive progress.  Some milestones crossed have been important functional ones such as holding a fork without dropping it (still working on the actual using it bit), but sometimes it is the seemingly trivial that is most rewarding.  This week I've been able to tie my hair back for the first time since January, and by the time I am reunited with my hairdryer and straighteners I should have sufficient hand strength to be able to style it too!  

80 days doesn't sound too bad when written down, but these past few months back in the UK has felt like an eternity to me.  I've said it before, but I remain absolutely devastated to have missed my one opportunity to have experienced a South Georgian summer, and all because of a finger injury.  Whilst seemingly quite trivial and the involvement of an avocado in the mechanism to some comical, the injury has been disabling for me and the recovery and rehab process long and difficult.  There has been near constant anxiety about rupturing the repair, frequent frustration, periodic pain, and one or two tears shed along the way.

BUT...5 months after I originally jetted off for my Southern adventure, I'm FINALLY setting off again for South Georgia.  My re-insertion will take a little longer than my record breaking extraction but I am relieved that finally I can get back and get on.  Can't wait :)

Single Handed Progress

Yep, that's my actual nerve there, all sutured up

It is now 5 weeks since I had surgery to mend my severed digital nerve and flexor tendons.  Whilst it was the obvious injury to the nerve in my finger that prompted my medivac, my prolonged UK stay is due to the tendon damage found in theatre.  As I approach the halfway point of my stay in the UK I thought I'd explain in more detail what I have injured, and the hows/whys of my long recovery.

Off to a good start

Photo Credit: Matthew Phillips

Right, time for some retrospective catch-up on the blog.  Prior to my premature departure from KEP late January, when I last wrote from the South in November, I was on the RRS JCR heading northwards from Signy.

I finally made it to KEP on 25^th November, and absolutely love it.  The above photo is our official Christmas card to other Antarctic bases.  We’d had a festive dump of snow (not uncommon, even in summer) and had just finished decorating the church.  Merry with mulled wine we were coaxed outside for the shot, but a snowball fight was inevitable.  Unfortunately the first throw hit the camera lens dead on!

Before I get onto more about life at KEP, a catch up on the last part of my journey:

A tale of a finger

The offending avocado.  It was tasty...

I have been woeful at updating my blog – so much for every two weeks!  I’ll blame this partly on a university assignment that swallowed up my December.  I’m going to post a series of catch-up posts over the next week or so outlining what I have been up to since I arrived at KEP.

However, first some disappointing news to share: I have had to return to the UK due to an injury

Heading South

It is now two weeks since I jetted off on my adventure South, and as I write this is feels like I’m going through a patch of turbulence again.  However I’m not on a plane - I am being jolted about as our ship, the JCR (James Clark Ross) makes her way through sea ice around the South Orkneys.  It is breathtakingly beautiful here. 

 

As the JCR pushes floes aside, krill is thrown up from ice shelves below the water and pure white Snow Petrels swoop down to pick up an easy meal.  They are silhouetted as they climb against the low dark clouds as flecks of darting bright white.  The scene around is monochrome, with the water an inky black and the ice floes glowing blindingly white even in the gloom of the clouds.  The snow flecked black ranges of the South Orkneys rise majestically from the ice but the peaks are truncated by the clouds.  Whispers of colour are provided by blue glacial ice in the mountains and icebergs.

Coronation Island, South Orkneys.  It really was black, white and blue!

Up on the Monkey Island (the highest accessible part of the ship outside) the sea ice stretches as far as the eye can see.  It will take us almost 24hrs to crawl our way out to open seas again and onwards to South Georgia.

Preparing to go

This time next month I'll be on my way to South Georgia!  The last few months have flown by in a blur and I now can't wait to get going.  I'll be flying on 4th November on the Falkland Islands airbridge - a 22hr flight via Ascension Island (EDIT: looks like I'll be flying the long way now via Chile....with BAS the itinerary is never firm until you are on a plane and in the air!).  In Stanley I'll join the BAS ship RRS JCR (James Clark Ross) as she sails south to Signy Island and then on to KEP, South Georgia.

The focus has now shifted from medical training (and completing MSc module assignments!) to BAS-related preparation...

The Appendix Question

I had a great time on the Basic Surgical Skills Course - all docs should do it!

It has been a while since I last wrote and my time here in Plymouth seems to be flying by. Us BASMU docs are still feeling privileged to have the opportunity to refresh our medical knowledge in a whole range of specialities, and have been introduced to new skills too.
‘So you’ve be learning how to take someone’s appendix out then?’...