The Blurred Line

Day 2 - transferred to ward, mum comes up

At 8 am, I was transferred to the orthopaedics (bone) ward via the spaceship lift. I was greeted by the nurses that would look after me for the duration of my stay: Caroline and Jeanette (I really hope I've spelt her name right). They really looked after me so well and treated my leg so gently. I was on a high dose of morphine though for some reason I remember thinking that the IV paracetamol worked better than the liquid oral morphine (oramorph which you'll hear a lot of the course of this blog).

I couldn't believe it when they told me that my mum would be travelling to see me from London and would be there by the afternoon. Of course I wasn't surprised and Laura had already said the night before that she was coming up. Still, I wanted my mum so much that I couldn't believe that I would be able to see her so soon. A phrase I will use a lot is from one of my favourite childhood books, Owl Babies by Martin Waddell. It goes, "I want my mummy said Bill," and this was a phrase I had thought over and over again since the beginning of the incident. At the same time, they were hoping to be able to transfer me to London, St Mary's specifically which is a national trauma centre, and weren't sure whether she would arrive in time before my transfer.

The problem was, however, that I was registered with a GP in Manchester, not London. For everything, London was so much more convenient but there was also the possibility of travelling to Edinburgh which also had a trauma centre. Unfortunately, though Inverness is brilliant for orthopaedic work, it hasn't got the plastics team that was needed for the soft tissue reconstruction of my leg. Thus started a correspondence about where I would go and which healthcare trust would pay for it.

The whole morning I spent drifting in and out of uncomfortable sleep. I had a lot of soakage from the wound which meant that I had to be changed every few hours. Thankfully there was always so much staff in Inverness, far more than I've experienced in any of the English hospitals I've experienced, which meant that this process was far less traumatic than it would have been. But turning over was a huge pain in terms of both actual pain and inconvenience.

The surgeons came to tell me that my leg was still limb threatening and that they'd applied internal pins as well as an external fixator. My leg looked rather like a mikano set surrounding a plaster cast. I'd badly fractured my tibia and fibula and had lost at least 5 cm of bone. They thought that I would probably need to have the leg shortened and then rebroken over a series of operations with the bone growing in between operations – a process that could take over a year. They also asked if mum was a doctor to which I replied that she was a science teacher. Apparently she knew her stuff.

When I finally quite site of my mum, I couldn't believe my eyes and completely broke down in her arms. The only other time I'd shed a tear after the incident was when Tom was holding my hand just before I went up in the helicopter. I couldn't believe how kind and amazing they had all been. All the defences I'd used to protect myself and all the walls of calm I had built right from the beginning of the incident just fell apart when I saw her. I was so sorry to have given her so much fright and stress. Everything that had happened had really happened and it wasn't just some scene in a movie that I didn't have to watch again.

I can't imagine a more wonderful mum. That's her in the pic at the top (tehcnically in the London hospital but look how beautiful she is!). As soon as she'd heard, she'd looked up how to get to me by plane and train but, because it was coming up to the bank holiday weekend, the mode of transport that would get her to me the quickest was coach. So my poor mum got the coach at 11pm and endured a 13 hour coach journey. She said it was like a school coach trip where all the naughty children sat at the back and the further back you got, the more cave like the coach became. Because the coach was delayed, they only got a 15 minute break at 4am.

When I asked her why the doctors thought she was a doctor, she told me that well she was a biochemist but also she had been an auxiliary nurse at Northwick Park during her holidays when she was a student – and specifically on an orthopaedics ward. I knew all this already but had forgotten. I'm very lucky to have her experience as she helps me with so much. Almost the first thing we did was wash me and taking off my sports bra was such an utter relief. She'd even bought dry shampoo! She was also obsessed with my catheter – I was not drinking enough!

At midday, I had my first proper meal since everything had happened. I had leak and potato soup – my favourite and it tasted almost as good on the way up as it did on the way down! The drugs and the trauma made me feel very sick and I vomited for the first time since I was 16 (I'm a very lucky drunk). I spent most of the rest of the day in and out of sleep and had chicken casserole for dinner which didn't stay down either.

At around 8pm, my pain got uncontrollable. My mum was worried about compartment syndrome which is where the cells swell after trauma. My ankle was incredibly painful and I was sorry that my mu had to experience "the howl". A couple of doctors cut off the plaster at the bottom of the plaster and my pain instantly felt better. My ankle had swelled under the plaster and had caused the excruciating pain.

They gave mum accommodation on the hospital site for £35 a night which she said was fantastic and meant that she could be with me pretty early in the morning to pretty late at night. The staff in Inverness were very relaxed which meant that I could have her with me so much of the time. I really needed her.

Being changed again was excruciating and throughout the night I had to ask for oramorph as I was so uncomfortable and in so much pain. The other lovely ladies on the ward were also having a bad night. I felt quite sorry for the staff and then I woke to the 6 am observations I've become quite accustomed to.