October 6th, 2026Just sayin’…

By Donna Kelly If you read this column regularly you will remember I broke my left ankle at the start of the year.

Of course, I hoped it was just a sprain but when I went for x-rays at St John of God in Ballarat, the surgeon came back with the bad news it was broken and needed surgery. Great.

Anyway, got all that done and relied on my right leg to get me through fun things like standing and scooching around while sitting on a walker. All good until my right knee decided it was going to call time.

So my ankle recovered while my knee slowly deteriorated. I went for an ultrasound and was told it was just plain old osteoarthritis. Just need to strengthen up for old age. Damn getting old.

So I did lots of gym work and saw a physio on a regular basis. But it didn’t really get much better. Another scan showed a Baker’s cyst which was apparently leaking into my calf. Hmmm. Finally a knee surgeon sent me for an MRI and that showed a meniscus tear in my knee. Most likely from doing too much. Who knew…well, he did. And the solution was an arthroscopy. That was done and dusted Friday week ago.

Surgery is never much fun but you can find humour in most situations. First up was getting into the gowns etc and then joining a room of people, dressed the same, waiting for a range of operations.

The television was on for distraction but I think most of us just happened to look up in time for the funeral advert. Great timing. Too late to run. Next up was the television in the surgery anteroom. I had been fasting since about 8pm the night before and was pretty hungry – and then it came on – an ad for Hungry Jack’s.

Then it was off to surgery and time to wake up again. This all went well, for me anyway. The youngish bloke next door not so much although I did tell the nurse: “I want what he’s having.”

He was in a lot of pain but also in love with everyone in the room and not afraid to say it out loud. “I love everyone here” was pretty much his mantra until I got moved to the next room where I had the usual dry sandwiches and apple juice, the juice is so yum, and then, as I was told would happen, was wheelchaired to the front door and then walked out to the car.

Recovery is going well although my nurse seems to have run out of patience for the patient and uses the F word quite a bit. I think my nurse thought because I walked out I would be up to wandering around the house, tidying up, making meals, doing the dishes, as usual.*

Back on the home front it is great to see so many festivals happening. I still have flashbacks of Covid and how pretty much everything stopped – and I still hold my breath if someone coughs near me – but there is so much going on now spring has sprung.

Garden festivals, the Lyonville Bake Off (Anne Bremner on the front is a good sport), a Wellness Festival, the Hepburn Swiss Italian Festa…I hope you are making plans to go along to some of them. And thanks to all the volunteers that make these events happen. Your hard work is appreciated.

Before long we will be looking down the barrel of Christmas – just 82 sleeps but we all know the older you get, the quicker it goes. So that means we have the November agricultural shows to look forward to, and the Highland Gathering. And then we roll into 2027. I still remember getting ready to go out and celebrate 2020. Good Lord. Just sayin’… *(Kyle’s note: Donna does not do any of that…)