My femoral necks
Sorry. It turns out writing a book and working for a month straight to get it finished did not leave me the brain space to also write this newsletter. But the second draft has been delivered, my UK editor thinks my reworked intro is “bouncy” which is exactly what I aspire to be, and I have some space. I’m just not sure I have much to say. Except: my leg is better. I’m running again. I got to my beloved moors again although I was so giddy to get there I found myself running in uncomfortable heat. Never mind. The curlews lifted my soul, so did getting to the trig. It was like a compulsion: the trig, the trig. And when I got there and looked at how much time I had spent on my feet, and considered my rehab programme, I did a final descent because I love that descent, and then walked 2.5 miles back to the car. Sensible Rose. I’m proud of that.
I worked hard on my book and I think I made it a lot better, and I’m proud of that.
I did and continue to do all the heartbreak things I’m meant to do: keep busy, keep active, no contact. And I’m not remotely proud of any of that because I still feel awful.
But bones. Back to my bones. Because of my stress fracture, and because it went from twinge to fracture in three days, and because it took five months to heal, I went to my GP and begged for a DEXA bone scan. DEXA stands for dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. Here is Wikipedia’s explanation which is better than mine could be:
Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA, or DEXA[1]) is a means of measuring bone mineral density (BMD) using spectral imaging. Two X-ray beams, with different energy levels, are aimed at the patient's bones. When soft tissue absorption is subtracted out, the bone mineral density (BMD) can be determined from the absorption of each beam by bone.
Cool. But also expensive. They must be, because getting one even after having a sudden-onset and slow-healing stress fracture and being a post-menopausal woman is apparently impossible. The GP I saw was not my favourite even though of course all GPs are amazing etc etc. (No. Not this one.) She looked scornful when I said I had had a stress fracture, because I told her I had paid for an MRI and it was “clear.” That was my word. I didn’t show her the images or the report. But she said, with total suspicion, “how strange that it didn’t show any bone remodelling.” She said, it was probably your tendons. I was angry with her for this. I didn’t pay £300 for an MRI and probably the same on months of physio for a tendon injury. I know what it was. Then she said, OK, let’s do an osteoporosis risk questionnaire. Are you:
a smoker (no)
a drinker (no)
healthy (yes)
fit and active (yes)
from a family with a history of osteoporosis (no)
on HRT, which is bone protective (yes)
OK, You have a 1% chance of getting a hip fracture in the next ten years. Bye now.
A couple of days later, I went to Leeds Beckett’s Carnegie sports centre to take part in a study. It’s a research study into how bones and muscles change or don’t during a training programme for a big event. I’ve signed up for the Yorkshireman marathon in September because I have high hopes, so I qualified. I turned up and met Matt and Sam, the two PhD students running the study. And the first thing they did was give me a DEXA scan.
Afterwards, the radiologist said, we can give you the results now if you like.
Yes please.
First she showed me my spine. All fine there. A fine spine.
But, oh, your hips.
Precisely, my femoral necks. And more precisely, the femoral neck of my right hip. The left one was bad enough as it was in the middle of the osteopenia zone on the chart. Osteopenia is weakened bone density. The next step after that is osteoporosis and we all know that is for grannies who fall down and break their hips all the time.
Well, no it’s not. My right hip is technically osteopenic but only very just. It is right on the border of the big red chunk at the bottom of the graph that is osteoporosis.
I mean, what??? See the quiz above.
I was shocked. I’m still shocked. My right hip is always tight and I’ve nearly always got running injuries on my right-hand side. But osteoporosis? See above about grannies.
I posted something on the Menopause Matters FB page about this. I called it “a salutary tale.” My moral was if you think your bones are in trouble and you are menopausal even if you are on HRT, don’t believe them and insist on a DEXA scan. It got a lot of reaction and one woman posted a link to a couple of articles that have found a link between SSRIs (a type of anti-depressant) and weakened bone density in women. It’s even on the government website.
Great. Just great.
I’ve been on an SSRI for a few years. I have wanted to come off it but this year was not the year to do that. But now I think maybe this year is the year to do that. Meanwhile I’ve bought a weightlifting bar set from Ebay, I’m going to eat all the calcium I can, and in three months when I get another DEXA scan I am determined to have increased the strength of my femoral necks with squats and deadlifts.
I’m not on Tik Tok so I have never encountered the dancing urologist before, but my friend Delphine sent me this video and it is great. Badly spelled, but wonderful. Because, see above. Every woman over 50 should get a DEXA scan as routine. It would prevent masses of costs incurred by fractures. It’s obvious. But we are women and we just make stuff up about our health all the time, right. Hysterical, same as we ever were.
Read all about it
The unsung artist Mabel Nicholson. This piece is also notable for the gleeful spite of the second wife. Mabel, though: check out the boy in this picture.
Japan is building an underground conveyor belt for freight. Like the old underground corpse trains, but for fripperies.
Acid attacks have risen by 75% in a year. Shit. But only 8% lead to criminal charges or even a summons. Even shitter.
A reminder of all the terrible things the venal, callous, incompetent, pocket-lining Tories have done in 14 years. (Except they do know what a woman is and what women’s safety entails. But even that is not enough to make me vote for them.)
Animal hero of the week : Mary of Exeter
People don’t like city pigeons. They are wrong. City pigeons are excellent pests which means they are excellent at what they do, which is surviving amongst and alongside humans. We can share. So it’s time for another heroic pigeon.
Mary of Exeter was born…no, I have no idea where she was born except that it was in the care of bootmaker and pigeon breeder Cecil “Charlie” Brewer. In “the 1940s” (bit vague), Mary of Exeter was entered with or without her consent into the National Pigeon Service. Her job was to transport essential messages into occupied Europe.
She was taken to Europe and made four missions in France. But the Germans had a weapon against pigeons: hawks. There are various methods to bring down carrier pigeons: here is an exhaustive explanation. Guns are popular but you have to be a good shot and bullets may be precious. Hawks don’t need bullets.
For these reasons, armies have experimented with training hawks and falcons to attack pigeons—a tactic that dates back to the Franco-Prussian War. When Prussian soldiers encircled Paris in 1870, the Parisians had collected some 800 pigeons from the north of France in advance of the siege, allowing them to send out information about the city to outer regions. Prussian troops released peregrine falcons to attack these pigeons as they flew from the city. To throw the falcons off, Parisians began releasing several pigeons “in rapid succession, each carrying a false note, until all of the enemy’s falcons were flying through the air in pursuit of one or more of the birds.” With a suitable distraction in place, a pigeon with an important message would be turned loose, escaping unscathed.
The Germans tried to bring her down three times. She returned each time, but on one mission she had ferocious injuries to her chest and neck. On another mission she came back with shotgun pellets in her body. On her final mission, the Indestructible Pigeon returned with shrapnel wounds. No more missions for Mary. She was given 22 stitches, which for a pigeon is equivalent to 4000 stitches in a 200 pound man (I don’t know who came up with that analogy but I’m using it). Charlie Brewer, pigeon breeder and bootmaker, stitched her a bespoke leather collar to hold her neck up after the latest severe wounds.
Mary retired from service, retired to her loft in Exeter and the loft was then bombed by the Luftwaffe.
She survived that too.
In 1945, Mary was awarded the PDSA’s Dickin medal. Citation: For outstanding endurance on War Service in spite of wounds. She died in 1950 and got her own gravestone.
In 2018 she also got a blue plaque. Along with Charlie. She may be the only pigeon with a blue plaque. Someone will know the answer to that.
Top secret. Is there any other kind of secret? Middle secret? Almost secret?
Anyway. Mary of Exeter, the pigeon who sounds like a saint. Think of her when that pigeon is after your sandwich, and let the pigeon have it. We owe them.
This is the bit where I politely urge you with Yorkshire grit to a) subscribe or b) upgrade to a paid subscription or c) click on the like button so I know you’ve read and maybe liked this. Because if you don’t I’ll know you hate pigeons and what’s wrong with you?