Being hip to an everyday story about growing old

Suffering from high blood pressure, which is treated and maintained at normal levels by a succession of pills, Ellie had been given some pain killers by the local doctor, whose surgery is some 25 yards from our front door. However, there was the warning not to take them too often as they can increase the chances of a stroke and internal bleeding.

So when she went back to the specialist, she had the x-rays taken and was promptly told: “You take those pills every day for a month. You must be in agony.”

It transpires that at some stage Ellie fell over and cracked the ball of the hip-joint, right across the top. She had no recollection of a painful fall but a couple of years ago she was pulled over on the road when the dog lead was left in the car and our dog Dixie was outside. We spent that Christmas attending hospital, while her fingers were stitched back together.

She recalls the fall and being a trifle sore on the hip but her main concern and source of pain was her fingers.

Whatever the cause, the cartilage on the ball of the hip joint has died, the bone edges necrosed and the broken bit is churning out the socket. The specialist said she would make the case a priority.

Unfortunately her computer system had broken down – it often does with the brief losses of power (power cuts) in France, which frequently last no more than five seconds, but can erase your passwords and send them back to default, as well as forcing you to reset various things. In fact I would vote EDF's electricity supply and the phone system as the worst things about living in France.

She was unable to write the letter to our local doctor then and there but sent it later. Our doctor then contacted the surgeon who will undertake the operation and obtained an appointment for May 29, which was then some five weeks in the future. Was she informed it was supposed to be a priority? Perhaps the specialist forgot to add that.

The bureaucracy dictates that each step is referred back to your local doctor and that while a specialist can proscribe an operation, you still have to see the surgeon who will undertake it. Normally this is not so long-winded and can be wrapped up in a fortnight or less on occasions, but apparently there are many people in need of new hips around here.

As a result we are counting the days and I suggested to Ellie that she hams it up a bit when she limps into the consulting room on the 29th. She replied to the effect that she would go without a pain-killer that morning. “There will be no need for hamming. I will struggle to walk anyway.”

We had thought of returning to the USA this autumn, as we have friends who would like to join us on a re-run of the trip I have been describing of late. But we have had to put that idea on the back-burner, along with our normal trip to the Costa Brava.

The only bonus is that I have moved on from the 11+ for shopping and am now qualifying for O-level status. I have also come to appreciate how much is involved round the house, which my wife has undertaken uncomplainingly for years, and that is just from taking responsibility for all things that require bending towards the floor.

So we are literally and effectively limping on, as we did during our recent visit to the UK. We hired a wheelchair and visited friends up north. It was in York Minster, pushing Ellie into the cathedral that I added another name to the colourful roster of names I have been called down the years.

We paid our entry fees and Ellie asked: “Did you see what the ticket said?”

I did not.

“It gave you a special rate as ‘A Carer’,” she replied.

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