Another Journey – Fractured Ankle

So, what’s a writer to do, when they’ve fallen over and fractured their ankle? Well they should write about it, of course!

In relation to that then, think back 28 September, Grand Final Day, to us Aussies, in the late afternoon, when my husband was inside, listening to the loud celebrations on the television. I’d gone outside to close the gate, as we usually do in the afternoon.

I lock the gate, turn, then look at our dog Missy, take one more step, and then crash, down I go, lower leg twisted weirdly, and pain. The try to get up, intense pain, worse than ever before felt! I call Missy, who was looking worried, and try and fail again to get up, then shuffle painfully on my bottom to the Hills Hoist, hoping to get up using that.

I well as loud as I can for Graham, my husband, and keep shuffling, the pain a huge star blasting my brain, yelling, yelling, until Graham comes out into the backyard. He tries to help me up, but realises the situation called for professional help, and calls for an ambulance.

The ambulance arrives, things happen and I end up at the Gawler Hospital, twenty kilometres away.  I have extreme pain relief to help with extreme pain, things settle, and then, after a long wait, another ambulance, to another hospital, the Lyell Mac, in Elizabeth, about fifteen kilometres south of Gawler.

Once there, pain relief happens, nursing happens, planning too. I am settled in a bed, with three other patients. I see a surgeon, and am advised about wriggling my toes to help reduce the swelling of my ankle, and I am settled, in wait for what would come next.

On Monday, I think it was, it is decided my ankle will be operated on, at a different hospital. Or that may have happened on Tuesday, not really sure. All of this time, pain and pain killers have joined together to wrap time up in a mist of who knows what.

I learn that one of the women there in the same room used to live less than ten kilometres from where I know live. We throw people’s names at each other, and pass the time in reminiscence, and in pain-relieved sleep.

At some stage, I have a CT scan, and some x-rays, in preparation for having my right ankle operated on, fixed. It seems I have fractured my tibia and fibula of my right ankle, and damaged ligaments in the ankle too. The level of swelling is a problem, and the surgeon would be happier it it were reduced.

The next day, it’s decided I will go to yet another hospital, so another ambulance ride on I think Thursday morning, and I settle into a far more swish hospital bed in the Ashford Hospital, which is much further away from home. More waiting, more pain relieving drugs, I have the operation, waking up to some weird things happening before I eventually work out what’s been happening, and so rest and rehabilitation.

My new best thing has become the pain-relieving drug Tapentadol, and I become a part of hospital life, as if I’d always lived that way. I have eventually shucked off the hospital gown I was put into at the beginning, and am wearing my own flannelette shirt in it’s place. I have visitors (family only) life continues, so so slowly, with hospital bed, and hospital life my now norm …

Time morphs into something quite different, as the time between ‘obs’ becomes the important way to go through the business of the day (and night). I have a visit from the physio and learn about my best new thing, a Knee Walker, that I will use to help me to get around, until I am able to walk again.

I’m fairly sure I’ve missed out things, but some things probably don’t need to be dwelt upon. Let’s just say I was very glad that I eventually had a way to get to the ensuite toilet that came with my private hospital room. The earlier method of relief, of relying on a nurse with a bed pan is something I’ll be happy to never have to use again!

With plenty of time, and no-one much around there was certainly some thinking on things going on. But with the pain-relief, it may not have been really deep thought here’s one of the morsels of wisdom from when I was at Ashford hospital:-

New hospital, nice sheets, brain 

switches on. An insight gained, 

or reason why Nurses do that, 

with their pen. They stick it in 

their ponytail the way they do

so when they do the obs, it’s 

right there when they need it, 

Obsviously!

My ankle is in a halfcast back slab, and is bandaged. I wriggle my toes whenever I think of it, and I am so grateful for my lovely husband who is doing an amazingly good job of looking after me. If I didn’t have Graham here, it would be terrible. 
And finally, my broken bits are put back together, and the only thing left was to go home again, and relax into a new, much reduced life, of resting and rehabilitating. And that’s where I am now.  I have  Knee Walker and a walking frame on hire, and I am able to use these to get from sofa to toilet and back, and then off to bed at night.

I have a rehabilitation plan, paid for by my private health insurance (and I’m so glad I have that to cover all of the medical costs!). This will provide me with 14 visits from a combination of nurse, occupational therapist and physio. So far, I have had a visit from a nurse, and will be seeing the occupational therapist tomorrow. On Thursday I’ll see the physio, and the work will begin, to get myself all ready to come back better than ever!