Firstly, holiday is back ON, the Mother is recovered and all is back on track. Of course I have done no finding/washing/packing of clothes at all, so naturally instead of getting that started I am here instead, to fill in the next thrilling installment of the Leg Break Saga.
First Installment is
Here .
So, we left Our Intrepid Heroine finally back at home, in a hospital with nurses, drugs and beds that go up and down and up and down and ... Anyway. Yes.
After all the fun of leg setting and casting, I was taken to a ward and a bed, and taken under the wing of the tiny, but terrifying, Nurse Jane (she was wonderfully patient with, well, patients, but woe betide any doctor, orderly or piece of equipment to cross her...), given Painkillers finally and generally made a LOT more comfortable.
The ward was a mixed one, which sent the Mother off the next day into a frenzy of Modest Pyjama and Pant buying. I forgot to say in the Previous Installment, that when bringing a change of clothes to the Hospital of DOOOM, she had apparently decreed my (I thought) respectable M&S
knickers Unsuitable For Hospital Wear, due to lacyness, and thus I travelled home in the sister's spare pants.
The fact that my fellow patients were all elderly, doped to the eyeballs and generally had no idea where they were did not matter. There were MEN and thus Modesty was required.
Along with my new attire, the following day (tuesday) also brought the consultant and the man with the whirry cutter to cut open my lovely new cast, check The Leg and draw
a big arrow on it, to make sure he operated on the right one. Which was the left one.
After peering at it and happily finding no broken skin, the cast was lashed back together and off he swept muttering something about operating in the next few days.
Thankfully I didn't realise at the time that he *actually* meant 'in about a week', and thus remained hopeful and quite happy with my lot.
I had a note book with me, which I rediscovered recently, in which I had made a list of Things Needing Done, including phoning work people, getting the cats transported to the Mother's, and, seemingly of Great Importance, cancelling attendance at Tentmeet.
Seriously, there is half a page of scribbling on 'How To Get Kiki to Tentmeet now I Can't Drive'. This may be the most organised I have ever tried to be in my entire life.
Which may be,
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tiquetoque, why I was Slightly Surprised to find out some weeks later, that NO-ONE TOLD KIKI. Useless fuckers ;p
This was my first ever stay in hospital and I have to say, it was nowhere near as unpleasant as I had imagined. The staff - nurses and orderlies - were all wonderful, despite being hugely overworked, the food was fine, even for me (pickiest eater ever) and I had lots of lovely visitors, with books to read and, of course, a constant supply of painkillers.
I also had
thesme_01 come to visit, bringing some very choice literature, highlights of which included teh Marine who timetravelled back to an Island of Viking Nuns who weren't very keen on celibacy. She nearly got thrown out of the ward for reading parts of that one out loud ;p I might actually dig some of those out to bring on holiday...
What also helped was that fact taht since there were no Beeping Machines on the ward, I could use the mobile phone and thus keep in touch by sending people drug induce texts or subjecting them to random phone calls.
Time passed and Friday came with no operation yet. The novelty of hospital was wearing off by this point, particularly since I knew that no op Friday meant nothing til Monday at least and thus no getting home for probably another week.
Not that this stopped me confidently assuring people that I'd be up and about in no time and, of course, back at work by the end of the month. I have since learned that EVERYONE knew this was utter bollocks but no-one had the nerve to break it to me...
One exciting change came on Saturday when I got moved off the ward into a private room (they'd been trying for this all week, since the wards are usually for higher dependancy patients). Tho, not a room on the facture wards. Nope, I got shifted off to the gastric things floor. But still, a room all to myself! I could phone people EVEN MORE! Hurrah!
Even better, on Sunday night they said I was on the reserve list for ops the next day (ie I *might* get done if everyone else got done quick enough). So no food or water from midnight.
Monday may have been the longest day of my life. Nothing to eat or drink, on a bloody hot day, and constantly waiting to hear if I was going to get knocked out and sliced open.
Add to this no painkillers (in case I was to be Swept Off to Surgery) and the advent of Special Lady Time. It may give some indication of my state of mind that I was convinced if anyone found out it was SLT they wouldn't be able to operate; I have no idea *why* I thought this. Or why one of my biggest FEARS was that I would, omgtheshame, bleed on the operating table (yes. I KNOW this makes no sense. I think it was somewhere imbedded with 'you have to wear clean knickers in case you get knocked down and go to hospital or they won't treat you').
So. Not a Good Day. The consultant swept through with lackeys in tow at about 3 oclock and said I still might get on at the end of the day. And swept off again. Leaving a Hellsion now distinctly on edge. Time continued to pass, with no sign of anyone coming to take me away. Finally at about 6pm, I found out from the DINNER LADY they weren't going to operate.
But, at least I got a drink, food and painkillers again.
Then there was the wait for the next day's list to come out to see if I was on it. Which usually came out about 7.30ish. But no list. Time passed, nurses came to check, still no list. Then about 9ish one DID check and said 'hmm, no, you're not on it' Which may have been the point I finally cracked and started crying at them. Not, of course, huge crying, but Noble and Restrained I Am NOT Crying or In Any Way About To Go COMPLETELY INSANE sniffing. Sort of ;p
Eventually the night shift came on and a new nurse came to check. So I asked HER, possibly in a rather Tense and Strained Tone, to go check, and to make sure she'd checked the FRACTURE list, not their gastric stuff list. I'm pretty sure I actually saw a lightbulb come on over her head at that point.
At about 1am she came rushing in waving a bit of paper and said "I got it, you're first on for the morning!".
HURRAH i thought HURRAH AND JOY AND... HOLY FUCK OPERATION OH SHIT. Then I fell asleep.
Tuesday morning dawned and finally, a week after getting to hospital, it was Pinning Time.
Thankfully, I really was first on the list, so I didn't have to sit through another horrendous day of thirsty endless waiting.
The Blue Gown was donned and, at about half 8, They Came to Wheel Me Away. There was something very nervewracking about being wheeled through the hospital. Possibly because I was going backward, but also because it was like SO MANY films/tv shows etc that start with that view of the ceiling passing by from a trolley.
Ended up in a sort of antechamber where needles were applied and drips attached and I wasn't getting AT ALL nervous, oh no. Then into the operating room, parked under the big round lights thinking 'help help, , what if the anesthetic doesn't work, hey that looks like a big glowy dalek think, shouldn't i be out by ...
Now obviously I don't know EXACTLY what happened next, but I'm assuming (mostly for thesme's sake) they got out some hefty Black and Decker power tools, sawed open my leg, while blood GUSHED everywhere, covering the floor and walls and ceiling, then they used a big electric screwdriver to put in the screws. Possibly while trying to read instructions from B&Q. Then they sewed it all back up again and packed me off to recovery.
This all took about an hour and a half. They also put a nerveblock thingy in my leg and attached the WONDERFUL MORPHINE DRIP OF JOY.
Sadly none of this actually took affect before I came round, which I did sort of screaming. And hyperventilating again. So they gave me a shot of morphine and told me to watch the clock and press the BUTTON OF JOY every 5 minutes.
Gradually it all started to take affect, and half an hour later I was back in my room, going ticktockticktockticktock FIVE MINUTES *press* Ahhhhhh.
The morphine drip is a wonderful WONDERFUL invention. And worked so well that, I'm told, by lunchtime (i was back the room about 11ish), I was on the phone to tell people all about operation and the joys of morphine. Or thats what I *thought* I was doing, apparently what I was *actually* doing was talking complete gibberish. This theme continued throughout the day and well into the night.
I do actually remember phoning Australia (HI SYDMUD), because texting was just far too difficult. Not what I said once I phoned tho ;p
I also remember waking up the next morning convinced I was in a hotel in France and being very confused by the maid wearing a nurses uniform and speaking english.
I don't have any of the actual xrays sadly, but thanks to the wonder of the internet and google, I have found one that pretty much matches wot I did and how they patched it up - Totally screwed!.
The horizontal screws are the ones that got taken out again in my surreal Adventure In The Military Hospital.
The rest of the hospital stay is a bit of a morphine-induced blur, but I did eventually get out of there on the Saturday, after one final hospital bed shift, this time all the way to the ear, nose and throat ward, where I met a lovely lady who was there because her eye nearly exploded on a plane. She had a MUCH better holiday disaster story than me.
So, just a fortnight after heading for a weekend break in Italy, I was installed at the Mother's house with 2 breaks, 4 pins, a cast and there I stayed for the next few months. But that's all chronicled already ;)
I'm not sure if the story has a moral, other than TAKE PAINKILLERS WITH YOU, but there you go. And if anyone has actually read this far, woo! COCK.
Now, I shall go start packing for the next holiday. From which I will hopefully return in one piece ;)![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
