Trouble on the moving stairs and other exploits

Right, now once again for the news in brief.

First of all, my sister left on Sunday after enjoying much of her week’s break from working in a hospital in Singapore…in a completely different hospital, which I’m sure was thrilling for her.  Luckily a few of my visitors from CS brought her around to see the city a bit, and she finally decided to join the CouchSurfing community, and on Friday joined a group trip to some nearby waterfalls, so it wasn't a total waste.

I have still been getting visited fairly regularly by couchsurfers since then, and I’m still getting new faces in. Last time I posted I was heading out to dinner for the first time since the op, and I’m glad to say it went very well, although by the end of it my leg was getting pretty tired as the protective boot I wear can get a bit uncomfortable after a while.  I’ve been out of the hospital a few times since, but can only really hit shopping malls because the streets are ridiculous – the good ones are crowded, and the bad ones require careful vigilance for gaps opening into the sewers, uneven ground, lack of footpaths and other various obstacles that can catch out the unwary crutch-handler.  I lost control of the crutches the first day, when they slipped from under my arms and I ended up putting my weight on the bad leg, which gave me more of a fright than causing any pain, but since then I've taken to taxi-ing around.  My first attempt at mounting the up-escalator was also a bit frightening, but I've gotten the hang of that now aswell.  It's all about timing and getting the good foot on one step, instead of half way between two of them, so when the panels start coming up you don't start falling backwards (which is especially likely to happen when your under-arm crutches are on the upper step as well).  A concerned friend has enquired whether the physio had actually taught me how to use the crutches, and I assured her that he had, but a normal staircase is a completely different kettle of fish from an escalator (of which the hospital has none) and thus training has to be done in the field, in my case while my sister watched in horror as I teetered backwards before grabbing the railing and stepping back once again on my bad leg.  I also tend to skip some of the steps that I was shown for standing up (out of bed, off chairs, etc.), instead of taking both the crutches on my injured side and using them to support myself as with the other hand I push myself up off the bed, before transferring one crutch to my other side putting both under my arms and being on my way, I choose to hop from my bed onto my good leg, pull my crutches from where they rest against the wall shove them under my arms and take off.  It is a much faster and convenient method of doing things, but it does upset the nurses and physios considerably when they see me doing it, but I'm sure they'll get used to it.

In other news, I've gotten through nearly all seven seasons of The Office US, seen a few films that I'd been meaning to get through (namely Terminator Two - Judgement Day and Blade Runner the latter of which was referenced at least once in every lecture of my Science Fiction module in fourth year - verdict: it was alright, but not sure I understand the hype)  Also saw Boy, a kiwi movie that I'd been told about while in Niseko.  I enjoyed it a lot, although it was possibly down to the ridiculous way they pronounce things. By the way if any of you haven't seen the Beached As clip, now's the time.

Further newsworthy events include the fact that I’m getting alternate stitches out tomorrow, and the remainder out on Thursday, and after that I should be ready to fly as it will be exactly two weeks after my op and thus I'll be at less risk of falling victim to the dangers of DVT on the long flight home.  The insurance company is paying for me to go business class (score), but they seem loathe to book the flights until I've actually got the all clear.  Which is fair enough I suppose.  I'm not going to whinge about it, anyway.  But anyway, this means that I should be on terra Hirenses (I think that might be right) within the week. 

Now all I have to do is try to meet up with the people that have visited me once more before I leave, if at all possible.  It’s going to be a busy few days, but it keeps things interesting.

On the mend

Despite the abundance of time I’ve had on my hands for the past few weeks I’ve been finding it difficult to motivate myself to write anything much, but here’s the rundown.

At 9am on Thursday morning, I was rolled into the elevator and brought down to level one for the big operation.   I know this is going to sound bad, but an observation I have made is that, for some reason, level one is where they place a lot of their better looking staff.  I mean this as no slight to the ladies I see every day up here, who are lovely, and treat me very well.  Maybe it’s because there’re a lot more people down there which increases the odds.  I don’t know.

Anyway, came to after the op at around noon, a little bit disoriented, with a burning pain in my leg.  I actually still thought I was waiting to go in until the nurse gave me a funny look and told me that I’d already had the operation.  I was brought back up to my ward and spent most of the day drifting in an out of sleep.  Didn’t really fancy my meals all that much and although the hospital food hadn’t seemed too bad before, even now, a week on, I’m finding it difficult to get back to demolishing it like I did last week.

The following day I was taken down to level one again to get my x-ray to see how the leg looked now it had been stuck back together, and an ultra sound to make sure I didn’t have any blood clots from lying around in bed most of the time (all clear).  The doctor came up with the x-ray later on and I was surprised at how much metal there was in there.  It looked a bit like my dad’s toolbox.  Twenty-four bolts in there.  I’m going to see if I can stick fridge magnets to it.

Anyway, since then I’ve had daily visits from the doctor, and the physio who trained me in the use of crutches and has given me exercises which I try to do on a regular basis.  I haven’t quite been doing them every hour, like he suggested, but on the other hand, I do manage more than the minimum of three times daily as well.  In fact, it’s not even midday yet, and I’ve already got three of them down. 

Yesterday, when they were changing my dressing I got to see how many stitches I got after my surgery.  Thirty-three.  I did take pics, but I’m not going to post those as they are a bit unpleasant to behold.

It was my birthday on Saturday, and also the day that my sis made it up from Singapore.  Additionally, being the weekend it was the day that many of the local CSers that had responded to my post in the KL group could come and see me.  So I spent the day with visitors coming and going, which was really good fun.   I was exhausted by the end of it, though.

On Monday, all the staff from this level came in to my room with a birthday cake and sang me Happy Birthday.  Obviously I was surprised, as it was no longer my birthday, and I wasn’t expecting anything from the hospital in any case.  The doctor had pointed out one of my birthday cards on my bedside locker earlier and asked me about it, so I think they must have rallied the troops together then.  A nice thought, and I tried to get a slice of cake to everyone, but there was a lot left over.

After that I think I’m out of news, except for the fact that I’m going to venture out of hospital for dinner this evening with my sister and some of the CSers that have been stopping by to see me here.  It’s going to be my first outing since the incident, so obviously I’m excited!  I’ll let you know how it goes

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Day one

Playing the waiting game for an operation.

Progress

On Sunday morning I woke up to find that the cuts on my leg had bled during the night and come through the dressing.  It looked a lot worse than it actually was, but they still had to change the dressings and to do so they also needed to take off the cast that I’d been wearing since I got to the hospital on Thursday, an uncomfortable process.

As they were redressing the damaged skin I asked them if I’d be getting some sort of pain killer before they put a new cast back on, because I remembered that as being quite a painful process.  ‘Oh yes’, they said.

Soon after, the medical evacuation doctor came and introduced himself, and we discussed how we were going to get to KL, whether or not I could bend my right knee, an inability to do so making the flight difficult, but not impossible, he assured me.  I was sure I could bend it if my cast didn’t extend to just above my knee, so when they were fitting me with more plaster the guys made the necessary adjustments.  Of course…they did forget to give me any pain killers in the end, so having them pull my foot out to straighten up my leg was tremendous fun.  In the ambulance on the way to the airport, my evacuation doc told me how annoyed he was that they hadn’t given me anything, and that he wasn’t able to say anything at the time because people get huffy if you start telling them what to do in their own hospital.  He was a good guy.

Flew business class to KL, and on the flight the doc told me that my break would be pretty straight forward to fix up, because I had broken nice straight bones (fibula and tibula) and not any of the tricky intricate bones of the ankle.  I counted my blessings once again that my sandals had broken and I’d been wearing my shoes when the bike landed on my foot (oh, and remember how I’d asked them not to cut my good sock when they were examining me on the first day?  Well when I was trying to get everyone to help me pack to leave the hospital we could only find one of them.  And that one had a big hole in it that I hadn’t noticed from the crash).  He reckoned that they’d either operate that evening or the following day.

When we finally made it to the hospital, however the doctor had another look at my leg (cast off again, but they gave me some painkillers this time before putting another one on) and said that because there were abrasions over the fracture that could potentially have goodness knows what bacteria in them, he felt that they would not be able to operate for two to three weeks, to avoid the risk of getting bacteria into the leg during an operation.  I was then shown up to my ward, a private room with internet and a TV.  A far cry from the place I’d been on the island, which, although I said it was clean, had a fair share of geckos running along the walls.

The following day, the doctor looked at my leg and said they could operate in five days or so, which was a good improvement on two weeks.  Next day, yesterday, I was told two or three days!  And so today I’ve been told I’ll be operated on at nine tomorrow morning, which is exciting news.

It’ll be at least two weeks before I’ll be able to take a long distance flight back to Ireland, if indeed that’s what I decide to do, although I can’t imagine too many other options at the moment, as I will be pretty restricted in my movements henceforth.  I don’t fancy lugging around a backpack the size of mine with only one leg and some crutches.  It would be asking for trouble, I think.

Have had several visitors through CouchSurfing, who have helped to keep me entertained for the last few days.  Also my sister will be arriving on either Friday or Saturday to visit me out here, instead of meeting in Thailand as we’d originally planned.  Possibly a poor second choice to getting some more scuba diving in, but the best laid plans…(I’m not sure how that saying ends, it’s usually left hanging , isn’t it, but I’m sure there’s more to it).

In other news, I’ve discovered that the cardboard jugs that they give you to pee into are not designed to hold urine for an extended period of time.

Time to sleep, big day tomorrow, wish me luck.