Physio-terrorists, surgery and plaster

Aside from Rosie, a nurse who works on the orthopaedic ward and always has a terrible joke to hand, hospital staff don’t seem to make many jokes. One of the few universals is to refer to the (very nice) physiotherapists as ‘physio-terrorists’.

I had an operation yesterday morning. Hilariously like a medical drama, viewing everyone from parallel to the floor. The surgeon had a blue cover over his beard, which under the beginnings of an anaesthetic was the funniest thing ever. Seriously.

Apparently the arrow worked, I came round with pain in the right (i.e. left) leg, and the temporary cast restored. Had a new cast put on by the plaster room (disappointingly white, but I guess that just means people can come and visit and draw on it, right?). Then pretty quickly started working on crutches technique with the physios, originally hoping I could go home tonight.

Unfortunately, I’m still quite woozy and nauseated from the anaesthetic so I didn’t get very far. I’m not able to use my crutches properly. Instead of keeping my arms pinned to my side and leaning through them, I seem to just hop. It’s not ideal, but it works and my upper-body-strength is pretty shit. If I’d known I was going to break my leg I would have trained for it!

So, given that I’m particularly dangerous on stairs, I’ve got to try and sleep it off and have another go tomorrow. All being well I’ll be home in time for book club chat and my moderator shift tomorrow night.

Dinner time. No visitors today, but Mum brought Joshua, Luke and Tori yesterday. Was really nice to see them. Apparently they visited twice, but at 2pm I was only an hour out of surgery and don’t remember them being there!

Legally stoned, waking up from an anaesthetic. (Me, not the baby.)

Morning on the orthopaedics ward

I didn’t sleep very well last night – there is a woman with dementia on the ward who gets very confused at night. The lights on the ward go out around 12:30 and come on again at 5:30. We get a cuppa at 6, but it’s a bit weak for my taste. This is an eternal problem for the Englishman away from home – no one else makes tea how I like it!

The nurses are delightful, and I’ve just had my first meal since yesterday morning. When I arrived on the ward, they’d already had dinner so I had some bread and butter and a cup of tea around 9pm. I’m not sure if it’s my hunger speaking, but I think the food is pretty good. Vegetarianism catered for and icecream at lunch time. It can’t be bad for me if it’s provided by the NHS, right?

Visiting starts in a couple of hours. I’m expecting Mum and Dad. They’ve cut a visit up north short. They were meant to be visiting family friends on the way back from a wedding, but have decided to come down to the southwest instead. Amy might also pop in, which would be excellent. She’s at a spa today winding down from last night’s hen frivolities. I’m looking forward to seeing the pictures!

The surgical team visited this morning, but my ankle is still too swollen to operate. It might be tomorrow, or as late as Wednesday. If they can operate tomorrow it’s not worth being transferred home. It’s no easier for most of my friends to visit Wycombe, anyway, and I like and trust the doctors here now. I’ll see what Mum and Dad think.

I’m beginning to realise what an impact this might really have. At first it was just funny, but now I’m having to have assistance with almost everything (I insist on dressing myself and using the commode alone – but the fact I have to use a commode is pretty awkward). I obviously won’t be at church today, but it doesn’t seem very likely I’ll be able to march with LGSW in WorldPride London either, and I’ve been looking forward to that all year. I’m not even sure if I can continue as a GamesMaker for London 2012, which would be a devastating loss.

A Very Busy Day

Exciting news: my lovely friend Amy is getting married! She and I have been friends for 15 years now (count them!) – we met at a pre-term induction rounders match at Becky High in July 1997. We were 11.

I met her fiance pretty soon after they started dating. Here is a very blurry photo of the two of them on the Roman Romp (Bath Uni RAG event) in February 2006:

Needless to say, I was very excited about her hen party. Looking forward to seeing old friends, and people from her shared houses at Bath whom I haven’t seen for ages. I arrived early, and pottered around Bath (one of my favourite cities to visit; part of my dissertation centred on the Roman shrine). I went into the abbey for the first time. 

Bath Abbey

Then I couldn’t resist a quick wander around the perimeter of the baths, whilst I had time to kill. I was waiting for a couple of people who didn’t know the city, so it was an obvious landmark to meet by.

Water is Best from the opening of Pindar’s Odes

It was also p***ing it down, being June in England, so I waited in the doorway of an empty shop. Got a text saying Nic and Fi had met Amy before finding me so gone ahead, and I put my phone down and stepped out to go and meet them. I’m not sure how I got from there to lying sprawled across the wet stones of the square with no umbrella or handbag and really kind people asking me questions, collecting my belongings and calling an ambulance. I think in total 5 complete strangers stopped to help in one way or another, and I’m sure others offered. I wish I had found out who they were to say thank you.
The lady at my foot was another visitor to the city (and, mercifully, a really good first-aider!), she was on a treasure hunt with her skittles team. I hope she got bonus philanthropy points!

I remember worrying that Amy’s super-organinsed older sister and Maid of Honour was going to have her perfectly laid plans ruined, so I did phone Amy to tell her to go on without me, but I don’t really remember what I said. Evidently there was some confusion about what was going on so she sent Peter’s brother to check on me (lovely guy, stayed with me for ages, but I’m pretty sure I was so confused I’d have a hard time recognising him again), and then Nic and Fi came over. St. John Ambulance volunteers are drawn to accidents! I was so thankful they were there, though.

The ambulance came amazingly quickly, and both the paramedics were completely lovely. (They did cut one of my lovely M&S patent mary janes off, but it was medically necessary…) Apparently I’m pretty funny on a combination of 10mg morphine, ‘laughing gas’ and shock. I was distracted by Nic and Fi’s geeky amazement at the features of a NHS ambulance. Apparently SJA don’t have hydraulic lifts for getting stretchers into the back. And Fi got to ride in the front, which is pretty cool. I think if I’d been fully conscious it would have been quite exciting! It was a bit like Casualty, when you see the patient’s POV and it’s all ceiling and funny-angle faces.

After a few uncomfortable x-rays (they involved quite a lot of posing my sore foot – vogue!) and a bit of poking and prodding, it turned out I had 2 injuries on my left leg: I dislocated my ankle and had an unstable fibula fracture.

Fun fact, fact fans: The fibula was named using the Latin word fibula, meaning brooch or pin, because of how it looks related to the tibia.

Thanks, Wikipedia

They were also amazing in A&E. More or less exactly at the moment the shock and morphine wore off (you could tell because I started screaming), they took me into resusc, knocked me out for an hour, reset my ankle and put it in temporary plaster. Then, when I was awake, a surgical registrar came to talk about how they could make my fibula more stable (put a pin in it), and to mark my leg in case the surgical team failed to notice the bruising and cast, and somehow cut open the wrong leg…

A doctor drew this, for the benefit of another doctor. Seriously.

I’m on the orthopaedics ward now to wait for surgery (in the room with all the old ladies who need hip replacements, but they’re very nice). Nic and Fi have gone to join the hen party in the pub after missing the first five hours to hang out with me and talk to my parents. Super-awesome of them, and I hope it reassured Amy. I’m going to get some sleep now. Epic tiredness and nothing else to do…