The Blurred Line

Day 24 - my first wheelchair experience

I've just been in a wheelchair!!!! For the first time in 24 days, my left foot has touched the floor. I have been basically vertical and able to sit with my family without being in a bed!

Just as a warning: the ketamine makes me feel quite spaced out so it's actually quite hard writing this blog. I really hope it's still as entertaining as you like though.

I was cheeky this morning and slept in – or at least I wasn't woken up even when breakfast came around. It's sad that a lie-in means quarter to nine. It used to mean eleven or even later! I woke up with my mum smiling at me and, don't worry, they let me have breakfast late. I was just so much calmer this morning; the pain had really been brought under control.

One of the excellent plastic surgeons, Graham, came round to check on me which was very lovely (I think this is becoming my catch phrase) but I had just put my hand in a dollop of blackcurrant jam which looked a bit grotesque really so sorry for that!

I had to have a blood transfusion in the night though but it makes me feel a lot better. I'd also had a good night's sleep, mainly because I have ear plugs! The lady who keeps taking off her collar was up all night screaming to go to the toilet but she has a catheter – she doesn't need to go to toilet! I think it's just become so ingrained in her mind to go to toilet before she goes to sleep and she also thinks she's at home that she just can't be convinced that she doesn't need to worry about going to toilet. I woke up in the middle of the night because I could hear her through my ear plugs – she was that loud! I was finally able to appreciate the view from my room today.

The night staff were really patient with her though they must have been incredibly stressed. Alma, the nurse who has been looking after us for the past couple of nights and also looked after me when I was first on the ward, is absolutely fantastic – always on top of everything and is so caring! She even got me a new mattress this morning after the other one kept deflating.

I could move forward and bend my knee and wriggled around my bed for the first time in three weeks. Mum had a map that she'd been given in Paddington station which turned out to be a leftover one from the Olympics – waste not want not hey! We located the Albert Memorial and some churches and Hyde Park I already knew was just out of my window.

The lovely occupational therapists, Nina and Rebecca, told me earlier in the day that they would try to get my into the chair in the afternoon which left me very excited indeed. Mum kept warning me that I would be lightheaded, of course to be careful and to take one step at a time. I think all the years of dancing have really helped me strengthen the muscles in my thigh so today I was already lifting my thigh quite high up to wash and get changed. Washing was so much easier today and so much easier than it has been for over three weeks. I am really looking forward to the day I don't have to be in the bed when it's changed.

I think I should also mention the mad skills of another Graham who takes my blood almost every day. Everyone else finds it quite difficult to take blood but he is fantastic and always finds the right place and gets all the blood he needs. He's basically a really good vampire.

When Nina and Rebecca returned, I was so excited! After a bit of a kafuffle with my bed, they got me to the end of the bed and my toes were just a centimetre of the floor. The bed worked just a little bit more and I could finally put my left foot on the floor. Not quite the odd sensation that I expected – my foot sit remembered the floor – but it was on the floor! My balloon on my wheelchair tried to fly away but mum managed to rescue it.

They then showed me a banana slide, which is 2D-ish but unsurprisingly looks like a banana except it's blue. Thinking back on it now, I've used these in St John Ambulance so I do know how to shuffle my bum on to it and then across on the wheelchair. According to Nina, it was "the best first transfer" she had ever seen. The wheelchair wasn't as hard to use as I expected either. To go forward, you move your hands forward. To go back, you move your hands back. To go left, you just use your left hand and likewise with the right hand to go right.

Unfortunately, I was a bit "wired up for sound" as my mum likes to say. I have various tubes in my body – my catheter, my epidural and two drains. Thankfully I didn't also have anything hooked up to my cannula. I think I may have pulled at my epidural in all the excitement and so Susan, the pain specialist, had to be bleeped. She managed to save it though so I'm still not in pain.

It was so exciting to be in my wheelchair! Everyone was able to see me in my wheelchair too – all the nurses who have brought me this far, V who has chatted to me every day and kept my spirits up, my sister and grandparents who have seen me awfully low but most importantly my mum who has been there almost every minute of every day to bring me this far both physically and mentally. I could finally look out and see the Shard which everybody else could see but I never could and the day room which I keep hearing about. I couldn't get very far because of the pipes and leads but it was quite a big achievement for a girl who has been bed bound for so long!

I managed at least half an hour in the wheelchair before my bum and my brain got tired so I transferred back to the bed but I look forward to Monday when the epidural, catheter and drains should be out.

They have taken V away now though. She's been transferred to a rehab ward which means she's a lot closer to recovery but I've lost my matie. We've exchanged phone numbers though so will meet up in a coffee shop in the future which will be a lot nicer than a hospital ward.

We have a new lady in the bay though who is very lovely. She's involved in a charity who is doing an abseiling event down this very building. I said that if they wanted an amputee to boost they're PR, then I would love to get involved too but the event is next week and I don't think Mr Simmons would be impressed if I undid all of his beautiful work with a bang abseiling down a rather large building. I don't think Graham or Sally would be either. I love abseiling though and would ordinarily jump at the chance to take part but I can't really literally jump at the moment anyway and, though I guess I could possibly get away with it, I would be a bit lopsided. Since I know they read this blog, don't fret or fear, I will not abseil down the side of this building... this year.

Mum has told me off for not drinking enough as I write to you so I quickly and sheepishly down two glasses of water whilst writing to you. Whilst writing to you, Isabelle and then Helen and then my friends Lyn and Emma surprised me in quick succession! They have brought me many goodies – tablet was especially appreciated when I took my oral ketamine. It was really wonderful seeing everyone but has left me very tired but I persist on with writing to you.

It was like a little party though and the ketamine makes me really giggly but I forget what I'm saying half way through a sentence. Ok so I do this a lot already but this happens a lot more now.

I just want to say, before I leave this blog, that there is a dodgy plug socket in this room and so my phone hasn't charged so I can only apologise for taking a long time to reply to your messages, good night!