I am now enjoying being four months post-op. In the last two months I have made so much progress.
I can now tie my hair up and wash it properly.
Hydrotherapy and intensive physiotherapy has enabled me regain a “functional” range of movement of 100 degrees, considered to be enough to perform daily tasks.
Hydrotherapy was my favourite appointment – a warm swimming pool with just your physio and one other patient and you did slow and gentle stretches and resistance exercises with various props.
I also have a thermaplastic splint fitted to wear at night, which I am told would cost £30, but is free thanks to our NHS.
I have just been allowed to lift up to 5kg. I have finally been allowed to put a little weight through the arm, like doing standing press ups.
I am not yet able to go on long bike rides or run on unsteady ground because the muscles in my bad arm are weak which makes me unbalanced when I’m moving.
I am now allowed to use the physio gym with its padded exercise bike, treadmill and basketball hoop to help with conditioning, building and strengthening muscle.
The therapy I am receiving is outstanding. I have gone from only being able to bend my arm 90 degrees to being able to flex it fully. I am now just 10-20 degrees off full extension as well.
My arm still aches or stings if I lift anything too heavy or rest it on a desk without having regular breaks. The tricep exercises hurt quite a lot – that muscle hangs loose, but the bicep is coming along nicely and after three weeks of being able to put weight on it for the first time, I already feel stronger.
I am continuing with daily exercises and practicing goal shooting when I can, as I am determined to get back to playing netball as soon as possible, hopefully back to my position as Goal Shooter. I also really miss climbing, but it will be another few months at least, I am told, before I can be discharged. I need to build up my triceps muscle and be able to fall safely. Hopefully it won’t be much longer now…
“I know” I replied. They’d given me a broken bloody gown and I had a broken bloody elbow.
How was I supposed to tie it? I had run out of clean knickers and I wasn’t about to put dirty ones back on.
“Your bum’s hanging out” a middle-aged patient said, offended.
“I know, they gave me a broken gown!” I replied. A shower would sort it.
A wet wipe clean had never looked so appealing.
Your mission was to heave yourself out of bed with your abdomen and your good arm, without making your elbow spasm, causing a horrific shooting pain.
Then you had to get to the wet room down the hallway to the left, again without moving your bad arm, and early, otherwise it was always occupied. Annoyingly, you had to hobble past a closer shower, which was out of order the whole four days I was on that ward.
“‘Scuse me” the nurse looked flustered.
“Can you tie my hair for me please?” relieved, she obliged.
I had been told that I was definitely having surgery today (day three) and I was determined to be clean for it.
Somehow I washed everything using one arm and a bit of creativity (resting a leg on a grab rail, keeping liquid soap steady on your shoulder…). I wondered how I was allowed to risk another fracture on a daily basis. Later I was not surprised to find that falls were the most commonly reported health and safety incident in England and Wales in hospital, with over 240 000 a year reported.
If I had fallen on my bad arm before the bone was healed, I would have had a “comminuted peri-prosthetic fracture” – a particularly complex fracture made worse by the interaction of internal metalwork on bone.
Nurses only had time for observations, support workers only had time to help with meals and making the beds. And my ward had a “very good” level of staffing according to the Royal College of Nursing.
A support worker came round and fussed about my table being “messy”.
I had most of my belongings there because that was the only way I could access them. But without asking, she chucked everything in a plastic bag saying it was a hazard, and shoved it in a cupboard out of reach.
I had a felt tip arrow drawn on me and three visits from various members of the surgical team.
They were so kind, helpful and understanding. They also explained that the reason I was in so much pain was because when my arm muscles contracted they were pulling my fracture apart.
ORIF surgery was Open Reduction and Internal Fixation.
I was going to have a titanium plate inserted over my elbow and that would be screwed into the bones to hold it together. They would clean out the wound first and remove any smashed bone. I would need months of physiotherapy. I was reassured that I was first on their list after lunch.
I was given the option of an uncomfortable one and a half hour surgery lying on my side conscious, being pushed and pulled about, or general anaesthetic, so I opted for the latter. They said they might have to insert a breathing tube but I didn’t want to be intubated so they said they would use a mask instead.
“You’ve become sensitised to pain” the anaesthetist observed, “that’s understandable given the nature of your injury.”
They looked enthusiastic and alert and and appeared to enjoy their work. I was even allowed to gingerly climb onto the operating table so I didn’t have spasms from being transferred. The mask was placed over my mouth and nose with an air gap but the anaesthetist saw that I was still conscious and sorted it.
***
I came to with a jolt in an unfamiliar white ward, like some kind of afterlife.
There were no curtains, just rows of beds, except I couldn’t see the other patients. Two curious faces loomed above me in green scrubs. Suddenly my body started convulsing.
The figures above me said something about pethidine and I was injected. My body relaxed and I felt much better as they whisked me back to the Trauma Ward.
Two cheerful young men in green scrubs came by in the early hours and introduced themselves as orthopaedic doctors.
I said “hi, can I have some morphine please?”
Codeine was not making any difference, there was an intense burning pain in the joint and if I moved my arm it was so strong I would cry out. Then there was the constant ache.
They exchanged glances. “Yes we can sort that. We have had another look at your X-rays and we think you probably don’t have an open fracture after all, so your operation can’t be prioritised. We might send you home for a week or two and bring you back in for the operation.”
I thought about trying to manage the agony with codeine.
“I want to stay in hospital until the operation.”
The medics acknowledged this and left.
I needed the toilet but I was on my own. I wasn’t prepared to pee myself and I couldn’t reach the buzzer.
Fortunately two support workers down the corridor heard me scream from the shooting pain of my muscles pulling my fracture apart, and one had to help me off the toilet.
After that I finally got morphine, but then a high-pitched voice jarred me awake. It was coming down the corridor accompanied by the squeak of wheels.
Lily was an advocate of LGBTQ rights, she said, and she wanted to be a counsellor for the LGBTQ community because one had really helped her.
She had been using a pedestrian crossing because the traffic lights had changed to red. A taxi had sped through and over her, breaking her back and legs. The driver had got witnesses to agree with his side of the story, that the lights were actually on green.
When she was not telling everyone about it, she was moaning in agony.
I was kept nil by mouth the next day, so I missed breakfast and lunch.
In the morning I waved goodbye to the smiley staff who had helped me, as I was wheeled out of the Theatre Recovery Unit and onto the orthopaedic ward. I hoped it would be quieter. It wasn’t.
The orthopaedic ward was larger and open plan, with a blocked dirty toilet and one shower serving 12 patients. The spare toilet and shower were both broken. Unlike the Theatre Recovery ward, it was usually fully occupied and half staffed.
My four day neon hell of noise and pain had begun.
It was Sunday morning and a woman was being gently and firmly reassured by a nun.
Next to her was 88 year old Brenda, who was visited by her son and the two laughed together. She was outspoken and her bright eyes took everything in. She beckoned me over and we had some good chats. She had survived breast cancer and then she had had a fall. She said she would probably die soon. “You seem pretty healthy, I don’t think so” I said. “Oh love” she smiled, “I’m not afraid of death, I know I don’t have long left, that’s just how it is. My husband passed eight years ago so I don’t mind, I’m ready. I’ve already survived breast cancer” she said proudly.
The table was put on the side of my broken elbow, so I could not reach anything and no staff were available. They had even put the call bell out of reach. I lay there looking at the clock, counting the hours until my boyfriend would break the monotony.
Finally, my first meal of the day was served, a flavoursome beef curry. My boyfriend brought home-made banana cake for dessert and it was so comforting to see him.
He brought in my medication which I had not had for two days. A nurse had not arranged it as she promised, when she refused to let him bring it in onto the Theatre ward.
Night fell and so did the staffing levels. Once again I was without morphine for hours and I couldn’t help making a noise about it, it was the only way of processing the mental stress of being in constant agony and helpless.
I apologised to my fellow inmates as I groaned through the hours, waiting for two nurses to be able to sign off the only thing that would let me sleep.
I played a pain management meditation and calmed down as I watched the clouds lighten. Pain was part of life, it was temporary and it wasn’t always a bad thing. I shouldn’t resist it or be worried about it.
A bed pan was brought but I somehow wet myself and an exhausted zombie nurse had to change the bed. She said how she was on her fourth or fifth 12 hour night shift.
The closest patients both had dementia, one lovely lady was unsettled by my moaning and repeatedly asked if I was ok. The woman opposite repeatedly asked for help even though she didn’t need it. Flustered staff checked and eventually she was ignored. This seemed to increase her harassment of them.
When I finally got morphine I was still in too much pain to sleep, so I got the nurse to get the doctor. Finally, a girl in her 20s sympathetically doubled the dose so I could finally drift off. As the dosage increase hit my system I suddenly vomited, and then spilt some on myself putting the bowl on the table. I had to sleep in it as no one was available to change the bed again.
literarylydi 
You must be logged in to post a comment.