Conclusion to Azim's Story?

Remember my brother Azim? Well, it has been around 2 weeks now since he was released from hospital after the accident. In the two weeks, Azim has been followed-up twice by his surgeon and the surgeon is happy with Azim's progress. Azim has also had several sessions of physiotherapy to mobilise his hand.

This is what his hand looks like two weeks after the operation. The graft has mostly healed well, with a few areas of breaks (which Insya Allah, will heal by itself after several days-weeks). To me, the wound seems to be nicely progressing. However, Azim says that his hand is very stiff - he is unable to move his fingers more than around 3 degrees - and that the hand is slightly swollen. He will need extensive physiotherapy to mobilise his digits in order to regain normal functions.


Now that all is well, Azim has been booked his flight back to Malaysia for this weekend. Everything was nicely planned, I was supposed to fly to Ireland tonight to help him with his bags and we were supposed to fly to Heathrow tomorrow.

However, bad luck seems to be following Azim like a shadow - this time in the form of fog.

(Picture: http://www.guardian.co.uk)
For the past 3 days, England has been blinded by fog. Driving back from my oncalls last week at night, the visibility was limited to only 10-20 metres. To make matters worse, the weather was cold and the roads slippery with ice.

In response to the fog, Heathrow has grounded most, if not all, domestic (mainly British Airways) flights. Most other flights are either delayed or cancelled. Meaning that our flight to Heathrow had a high chance of being grounded too, diminishing the chances of Azim flying back to Malaysia! The weather was reportedly going to remain terrible until after Christmas - affecting tens of thousands of people intending to fly from Heathrow.

Thank goodness however, we responded quickly. We had Azim book another flight to Birmingham (where the flights are not grounded, as visibility there is probably better) at the earliest possible opportunity. Alhamdulillah, we managed to book a flight for Azim for this morning and now Azim has arrived safely with us.

It is still far from over though; Azim is supposed to fly from Heathrow tomorrow - and I hope there wouldn't be utter chaos. We have already booked the bus tickets to arrive at least 8 hours before the flight, to include delays. It normally would be a horrible day to travel tomorrow, as it is the Christmas Weekend, but I'm hoping that would not be the case.

Wish us luck.

PS

1. For larger fog images, do visit my Fotopages :)
2. Oncalls has forced me to neglect my blog - I'm terribly sorry. Many updates planned for this Christmas holiday though :D