What's in a name?

I’m often asked if Sassy is my real name and that got me thinking about how I came by it.

When my Mother was going in to labour for the first time the nurse asked her “Do you know what you’re going to call it?” and my mother answered “Paul Jared if it’s a boy and Tiffany Sarah if it’s a girl”. The nurse responded with “Really, well let’s hope for a boy then”.

Thankfully my brother did come first. However, when my Mother fell pregnant with me the name Tiffany Sarah was still on the table until one of my Father’s colleagues brought something startling to his attention. At this point I should mention that my Father was always called Willy by his workmates due to our surname. I suspect the conversation went something like this.

Workmate “So Willy, you still thinking of calling it Tiffany if it’s a girl this time?”

Dad “Yes”

Workmate “You do realise she’ll go through life being called Fanny Willy don’t you?”

Dad “Oh crap”

I don’t know who that workmate was but I think I love him a little bit. Tiffany was officially dropped. Bizarrely enough, my Step-Father has called me Fanny from the day we first met. I have no idea why. A number of my own workmates also called me Willy until I married. One still does. Seems I was always destined to be Fanny Willy.

Had I been a boy I was going to be called Ringo. With a Father called John, a Mother called George (yes it’s short for something) and a brother called Paul it seemed rather fitting. X chromosomes I bloody love you.

When I finally popped out they named me Sarah Louise Grant. Grant being the second middle name all of the male members of my family have. My birth certificate says something different, however, and my Mother always wished she hadn’t left it up to my Father to register my birth.

Names are funny things. How many of you like the name you were given or even think about it at all?

My best friend Lulu hated her name and for as long as I have known her has only ever used her middle name. I’m afraid that I can’t tell you her first name because she’d kill me. Even her own Mother calls her by her middle name which, as chance would have it, we both share. She was Louise when I met her but as soon as we became friends she became Lulu to me.

One of my oldest friends grew up being called Mumfy. I think it was because her younger sister Tori couldn’t say Samantha. I’ve always thought it a lovely, affectionate name but she absolutely hates it now. Call her Mumfy at your peril.

Likewise, I have another cousin who will always be Suzie to me but she now refers to herself as Susan and, it seems, so should I. Susan is not a name I attribute to her so I find it very hard not to call her Suzie.

You see, in my world, most people have different names to the ones they were given. If I take a look at my phonebook it’s full of nicknames. For example:

Ross – aka Big Man

Jo – aka Joey Big Pants

Vanessa – aka Lady Vee

Dave – aka Woolly

Sean – aka Bongo

I know two Julies both with surnames beginning with W. One is Joolz and the other is Jelly-Tot.

Chances are, if you’re in my phonebook you’re not in it with your real name.

So, back to me. To be honest I answer to a lot of different names. To my family I’m Sarah, except for my Step-Father. At work I answer to Sarah, Sassy, Willy, Smiffy, Limpy. At home I answer to some very sweet pet names and also E.R. It’s short for “come here and have a look at this”

As to how I became Sassy, well I credit my friend Laura for that. She first started calling me it many, many, many years ago and it’s kind of stuck. Pretty much all of my friends now call me Sassy. It’s a name I struggled with at first but it’s grown on me.

In formal settings and when meeting people for the first time, I will pretty much always call myself Sarah.

Here’s a tip. If we meet, should I introduce myself to you as Sassy then it’s a given that I’m considering you friend potential.

As for you, well you may refer to me in what ever way you choose. I’ll answer to pretty much anything.

Them bones, them bones, them knee bones.

Part one........

It's almost a year since I had my latest knee surgery and with a follow-up meeting due with the surgeon shortly I've been considering whether, or not, this has had positive impact I was promised. In short, the answer is a big, fat no.

I've had problems with my knees since childhood. Although my knee joints are of a normal size, my knee caps are small and they sit high and to the right of the joint. As a result they don't track properly and would dislocate, without warning, on a regular basis.

By way of example, I distinctly remember one instance when I was 13. I was standing quite still in front of my bedroom mirror brushing my hair when my right knee dislocated. As I started to fall my left knee dislocated. Thankfully the distance between my bed and dressing table was quite close and I managed to use these to stop my fall. In reality this meant that I had one hand on my bed, one on my dressing table and that I was supporting the whole of my body weight on both arms whilst keeping my legs & feet off the floor.

If you're sitting down reading this, try placing one hand either side of your bottom and lifting your bottom off the seat. Bring your knees up so that your feet are off the floor and hold that position for as long as you can. It's hard work isn't it.........................now try imagining you had to do that for 15 minutes with two dislocated knees.

Even now when I think about my knees dislocating my stomach turns over and I feel sick. It's definitely the most pain I've ever felt and it just kept on happening.

At the time I was a competitive swimmer and my knee specialist said that he suspected that they would have dislocated more often if it wasn't for the fact the my muscles were so strong. I dread to think.

I had my first knee op when I was 12. My surgeon at that time was Mr Broad - or The Butcher Broad as he later became known to me. He performed a lateral release - info here http://www.knee1.com/EducationCenter/procedure_Details.cfm/12 - and I woke up to a full plaster from my ankle to the top of my thigh. I was kept in hospital for a week and allowed to go home, on crutches, for a further 5 weeks after which they would remove the cast.

On the day I left hospital I told the nurses that my knee felt like it was bleeding but I was assured that this wasn't possible because the blood would seep through the cast.

A week after leaving I started to notice blood on my fingers as I stuck my hand the top of the cast to relieve an itch on my thigh. My parents took me straight to the hospital once again to be told that my knee couldn't be bleeding because it would seep through the cast.

This was a regular occurrence right up to the day I was due to have my cast taken off. I was adamant it was bleeding but the 'experts' always said that this couldn't be possible.

And so the day came for the cast to be removed. As the nurse was sawing down either side of the cast my mother joked about needing to hold our breaths because it was going to be putrid. The nurse laughed and carried on sawing and then he tried to lift the front of the cast off.......................but it wouldn't come. He tried again, with a little more force, but it still wouldn't come off. He called for assistance and, with a colleagues, tried even harder but it still wouldn't budge. In the end he had to cut it into section and pry these off my knee.

It seems that whoever had put the cast on had padded it far too heavily. This meant that nothing could have seeped through and my knee had been in a cycle of bleed & heal and bleed & heal, before my body eventually decided to accept the cast and the metal staples, which had been used to close my knee, as part of me.

New skin had formed over the staples and around the inside of the cast. In case you are eating I won't go into detail about how they removed the staples but let me just say that it was horrific.

As a result I was left with scar which was 12 inches long and 5 inches wide and I was forced to wear a back-slab for another 3 months. As for the operation itself, well my knee stopped dislocating for a few years but it was a very long recovery process.

Part two to follow....................Odstock hospital & reconstructive surgery.