Getting Back To Something Resembling Normal
Newcastle RVI dosed me up and kicked me out of hospital this week - Yay! Then after one day arranged to have an ambulance drag me to a different fracture clinic - Booo! Elmo arranged for the bottom floor of the house to be my new lodgings since the bed and loo are all on one level, but my release had been conditional on being able to tackle everything the physiotherapists threw at me (the focus was on stairs but I also had to play a slightly bizarre game of getting up and down from a seat that was gradually being lowered to 18 inches off the ground). So as soon as I was home I was keen to hobble up from the front door to settle in the living room on the first floor. And that was a lovely feeling once I'd scaled the summit! Since leaving for work on Feb 7th I just hadn't been anywhere familiar. So getting to sit on my own couch, call up programs on my own sky planner and drink my own coffee was strangely wonderful. Lulu seemed a bit confused about what my crutches were and sort of headbutted them initially, like a tiny furry bull facing a crippled Toreador. That's what happens when you give aging Westies steroids methinks.
And I just want to say how bloody nice it is to get away from the RVI's regime of forcing everyone awake at 6.30am everyday (with inhuman cheeriness), regardless of how long it took for anyone to fall asleep - thanks to pain and vociferous ward-mates with dementia I was getting no more than about 2-3hrs sleep tops, apart from the two days where I bitched enough to get some morphine squirted down my throat - tastes like cherry chloraseptic! That and the nurses insistence on phrasing orders like questions that unfortunately made me want to beat a few of them with a bedpan: "Do you want me to put your socks on?" - "No, ta, my feet are too hot actually." - "I think you need to put your socks on." - "I won't be able to take them off and it'll keep me awake so I'd rather you didn't thanks." - "I'm going to put your socks on." - "Please don't!" - "You have to keep your feet covered." - "...Was there any reason why you asked me then?" (=_=)
The other hospital I was dragged to, in Darlington, had no knowledge of me other than the Durham Lost Angles address I left in 2009 and the fairly obvious fact that I was in a wheelchair. (>.<) I had no idea why I had to be there. Neither did they! The doctor's attitude seemed to imply that their lack of any info from RVI was somehow my fault. I tried to explain what had been done while I was in Newcastle but the fact that I was unconscious for the operations was a very inconvenient hurdle. I got wheeled down to their x-ray for a FOURTH round of glamor shots that always have to include what I call the 'semi-cancan' on my back with my right knee up over my shoulder (I would put my finger on my mouth for a more cheesecakey pose if it weren't for the pain making me pull an 'angry bunny' face). Gotta say, I was a bit disappointed that Darlington doesn't have a fancy-pants laser guided affair, it seemed more like some great clunking mechanism that would have been more at home on the set of "Silent Running". This immediately made me assume that the x-rays themselves would somehow be inferior - I'm desperate for a copy of one of the sets taken at Newcastle so I can make a nice little framed triptych going down the stairs or over the bed! If they x-ray me one more time I'm fairly sure I'll develop some kind of mutation and get an emissary of Charles Xavier knocking at my door.
All the slightly mole-like Hungarian doctor seemed to conclude from the x-rays was "You have broken many bones", which I could (and did) tell him! He got a nurse to whip the big plaster off the 'zombie patch' on my knee and nodded approvingly at the road-hauled flesh before she put a new dressing on. The he ordered the stitches out. That was not pleasant. I would have imagined something resembling nail clippers could have done a neat job and the blue plastic string stuff could then be pulled out with tweezers. But according to the disarmingly nice nurse the only way to go is to yank the quadruple-tied knots up with tweezers then hook in something resembling a tiny fairy-size sickle and hack away at string and flesh alike until something gives... I was sat there watching the blood trickle thinking Jesus, I'm not a loaf of bread, luv! Although that's because I've still got very little sensation in my left leg. By the time it came to do the wrist with all the smashed bones and functioning nerves inside I was mostly just thinking FUUUUUUCK! We had to stop and let me fight a dizzy feeling at least three times before I sort of pinned my own twitching arm down on a pillow like I was wrestling myself.
Also, I finally found out that the beloved Hellboy tattoo on my right wrist is indeed fucked. If there's a three inch scar on my arm now then so be it; but two of the Lemurian letters that I taken so much trouble to get precise have been utterly mulched by the cut and hacked-off stitches! That's the first time I've felt proper She-Hulk levels of anger towards "Stupid Old Man in Big Black People Carrier of DOOM" and I swear I will be listing laser removal and ink redo on that bastard's compensation list because the perfectionist in me cannot leave it like that on a part of me that I'll see all the time!
Darlington also decided I needed yet more physiotherapy even though there weren't any physiotherapists available. The porter was about to park me in a corner of reception and forget about me when I mentioned that I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 8am and it was getting on for about 3pm by that point - the receptionists were lovely, if not a bit odd. One of them asked me what I'd like if she got me a drink, so I said water rather than a hot drink since that would be my first choice. Then another receptionist magicked up a little ham salad sandwich and asked if I'd like a second drink, in which case I said coffee would be a nice extra. The first lady came back with water and demanded to know why I had coffee in front of me if I'd asked for water then the two women got into an odd clucking match over my head while I tried to point out that I picked water on the assumption that I was only getting one drink option and something was discussed about caffeine helping me not keel over at any point. Bless 'em!
The physio seemed a bit surprised that I could pull the plaster cast on my right arm on and off at will - apparently that means the last two weeks I would have been at risk of not being held in the right position for the bones to heal properly. Oh joy. But by now it seems to be an advantage since trying to just function in a wrist brace like my left hand was NOT cutting it pain-level-wise and she's advised me to keep wearing the Hellboy hand. Once the physio had seen how much I could waggle the affected limbs, her advice essentially boiled down to "keep waggling everything as much as you can then." Gentle waggling had been my plan anyway, so making me wait two hours to be told that seemed a bit pointless but there you go.
I'm now at home, waggling with care. Getting up and down the stairs adds to the bending-of-knee-count and mucking about on the computer is a bit of an extra work out for my hand and wrist. I've done some photo manip tweaking for an avatar to join an X-Men RPG site but I'm sort of putting off the moment of truth with trying to draw anything yet... One crutch-assisted step at a time I guess.
And I just want to say how bloody nice it is to get away from the RVI's regime of forcing everyone awake at 6.30am everyday (with inhuman cheeriness), regardless of how long it took for anyone to fall asleep - thanks to pain and vociferous ward-mates with dementia I was getting no more than about 2-3hrs sleep tops, apart from the two days where I bitched enough to get some morphine squirted down my throat - tastes like cherry chloraseptic! That and the nurses insistence on phrasing orders like questions that unfortunately made me want to beat a few of them with a bedpan: "Do you want me to put your socks on?" - "No, ta, my feet are too hot actually." - "I think you need to put your socks on." - "I won't be able to take them off and it'll keep me awake so I'd rather you didn't thanks." - "I'm going to put your socks on." - "Please don't!" - "You have to keep your feet covered." - "...Was there any reason why you asked me then?" (=_=)
The other hospital I was dragged to, in Darlington, had no knowledge of me other than the Durham Lost Angles address I left in 2009 and the fairly obvious fact that I was in a wheelchair. (>.<) I had no idea why I had to be there. Neither did they! The doctor's attitude seemed to imply that their lack of any info from RVI was somehow my fault. I tried to explain what had been done while I was in Newcastle but the fact that I was unconscious for the operations was a very inconvenient hurdle. I got wheeled down to their x-ray for a FOURTH round of glamor shots that always have to include what I call the 'semi-cancan' on my back with my right knee up over my shoulder (I would put my finger on my mouth for a more cheesecakey pose if it weren't for the pain making me pull an 'angry bunny' face). Gotta say, I was a bit disappointed that Darlington doesn't have a fancy-pants laser guided affair, it seemed more like some great clunking mechanism that would have been more at home on the set of "Silent Running". This immediately made me assume that the x-rays themselves would somehow be inferior - I'm desperate for a copy of one of the sets taken at Newcastle so I can make a nice little framed triptych going down the stairs or over the bed! If they x-ray me one more time I'm fairly sure I'll develop some kind of mutation and get an emissary of Charles Xavier knocking at my door.
All the slightly mole-like Hungarian doctor seemed to conclude from the x-rays was "You have broken many bones", which I could (and did) tell him! He got a nurse to whip the big plaster off the 'zombie patch' on my knee and nodded approvingly at the road-hauled flesh before she put a new dressing on. The he ordered the stitches out. That was not pleasant. I would have imagined something resembling nail clippers could have done a neat job and the blue plastic string stuff could then be pulled out with tweezers. But according to the disarmingly nice nurse the only way to go is to yank the quadruple-tied knots up with tweezers then hook in something resembling a tiny fairy-size sickle and hack away at string and flesh alike until something gives... I was sat there watching the blood trickle thinking Jesus, I'm not a loaf of bread, luv! Although that's because I've still got very little sensation in my left leg. By the time it came to do the wrist with all the smashed bones and functioning nerves inside I was mostly just thinking FUUUUUUCK! We had to stop and let me fight a dizzy feeling at least three times before I sort of pinned my own twitching arm down on a pillow like I was wrestling myself.
Also, I finally found out that the beloved Hellboy tattoo on my right wrist is indeed fucked. If there's a three inch scar on my arm now then so be it; but two of the Lemurian letters that I taken so much trouble to get precise have been utterly mulched by the cut and hacked-off stitches! That's the first time I've felt proper She-Hulk levels of anger towards "Stupid Old Man in Big Black People Carrier of DOOM" and I swear I will be listing laser removal and ink redo on that bastard's compensation list because the perfectionist in me cannot leave it like that on a part of me that I'll see all the time!
Darlington also decided I needed yet more physiotherapy even though there weren't any physiotherapists available. The porter was about to park me in a corner of reception and forget about me when I mentioned that I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 8am and it was getting on for about 3pm by that point - the receptionists were lovely, if not a bit odd. One of them asked me what I'd like if she got me a drink, so I said water rather than a hot drink since that would be my first choice. Then another receptionist magicked up a little ham salad sandwich and asked if I'd like a second drink, in which case I said coffee would be a nice extra. The first lady came back with water and demanded to know why I had coffee in front of me if I'd asked for water then the two women got into an odd clucking match over my head while I tried to point out that I picked water on the assumption that I was only getting one drink option and something was discussed about caffeine helping me not keel over at any point. Bless 'em!
The physio seemed a bit surprised that I could pull the plaster cast on my right arm on and off at will - apparently that means the last two weeks I would have been at risk of not being held in the right position for the bones to heal properly. Oh joy. But by now it seems to be an advantage since trying to just function in a wrist brace like my left hand was NOT cutting it pain-level-wise and she's advised me to keep wearing the Hellboy hand. Once the physio had seen how much I could waggle the affected limbs, her advice essentially boiled down to "keep waggling everything as much as you can then." Gentle waggling had been my plan anyway, so making me wait two hours to be told that seemed a bit pointless but there you go.
I'm now at home, waggling with care. Getting up and down the stairs adds to the bending-of-knee-count and mucking about on the computer is a bit of an extra work out for my hand and wrist. I've done some photo manip tweaking for an avatar to join an X-Men RPG site but I'm sort of putting off the moment of truth with trying to draw anything yet... One crutch-assisted step at a time I guess.