Good News Keeps on Coming & Then Someone Bursts the Happy Bubble

Two bits of good news in two weeks - diagnosis of problems with hubby's knee and Danni's GCSE results!

Firstly hubby's hospital visit following an MRI scan to ascertain the reason for the pain in his left knee.   Shaun has some history with his left leg; in 1989 he went into hospital to have an arthroscopy as it was thought he had cartilage problems.  Unfortunately after the procedure not producing any results further investigations were carried out and a giant cell tumour was found eating into his thigh bone - about the size of a melon - so yes not much bone left.  We were told at the time he was lucky that the leg hadn't broken, which would have resulted in amputation - not the best news 1 month after you've got married in your mid 20's!   He was referred to a hospital in London which specialised in the treatment of this type of illness and had his thigh bone rebuilt with a new kind of bone cement.  When Shaun started having massive amounts of pain and problems walking recently we were both concerned that we had a repeat illness on our hands.  The NHS have been brilliant in getting this diagnosed quite quickly, luckily when he visited the consultant last Thursday it wasn't as serious but he was told that he had torn the tendons around his knee joint.  There was apparently already a weakness around that area following the work done previously so it was just a matter of time before he needed something doing.   Keyhole surgery will be done to reattach the tendons and "tidy up" the remaining cartilage within the next 3 months, hopefully meaning only 2 weeks off work!

The second on the list is my daughter's GCSE results.  They couldn't have been better and we're so proud of how well she's done, especially as we now find out that they've changed the way the exams are marked and grades are down by 37% countrywide - her total swag came out at 4 As (two were Distinctions in IT), 7 Bs and 2 C grades, plus an E for RS!  We can now breathe easy for a couple of weeks in the run up to starting college in September and at least two more years of hard slog to attain AS/A Levels in Biology, Chemistry, French & Psychology.

Today my heart is sad - one of my cycling heroes, Lance Armstrong, has given up the fight against his long standing doping allegations.   Whether this is an admission of guilt or just a man who has lost the will to fight against a "witch hunt" I do not know and as I don't have all the facts and figures I would not dare to go either way - so I am sitting on the fence.   If it is an admission of guilt then this could potentially be damaging for a sport I have loved and supported for 28 years, if it's true that he didn't use drugs or performance enhancing procedures then it's a travesty for Lance.   The 10 who have testified against him will never be identified and could potentially still be racing and at least one of the riders who will benefit from taking one of Lance's Tour titles is himself a returning doper who only served a 6 month ban. Let's hope that cycling can now move on.  Dopers are still being caught and personally I think that sanctions against them are not brought quickly enough or last long enough, but that's just my opinion.