Plated and Riveted

Saw the orthopaedic surgeon on Tuesday morning. He sends me off for more x-rays... the an  emergency CT scan. Things are not looking good.

The top of the radius is smashed and the tip of the ulna is far away fron where it should be. My whole hand is about 1 inch from where it should be on the end of my wrist. Not good.

I need a plate screwed into the top of the radius and a wire to bring the tip of the ulna back in place. Fuck!

Good news is they can operate that afternoon. Guess it was an emergency for the NHS (public health service) to be able to do that. At 16h00 they wheel me into theatre and I drift off to sleep.

I wake in agony. My wrist hurts like a muthafucka! They give me morphine through the tube in my right hand. Bejeesus! That hurts as much as my left wrist! It is the same level of pain I experienced when the Honda nearly killed me at Oliver's Mount (story for another time). About a  9 out of 10. 10 would be a pass-out. Christ! I wanted to pass-out. I feel the morphine working through my body but my wrist is still killing me. "How's that?" I'm asked.

"Fuck me! Not good."

They give me more morphine... this time the burning in my right arm is stronger than the pain in my left wrist. If I was corpus-mentus I would have jumped out of the bed!

"Jeeeesus!"

I'm struggling in a dopey haze. Someone is holding me down and telling me to relax. I try. They comment that it shouldn't hurt that much. Well it funkin did! More morphine please...

"Aaaaaargh!"

"Is that better?" I'm asked.

I try to relax...

"Fuck me! Not really." I manage to garble. "Anyone got a pivo?" Only now do I realise the joke was lost on them... pivo is Croatian for beer... I wasn't really with it. Someone tells me that they can't give me any more morphine... kinda grateful as the pain if it going in was now greater than the pain on the other side... it was starting to work.

I try to relax. The morphine makes my body feel warm and soft... like a sticky-toffee pudding... but my wrist still hurts like fuck. It's improving though... about an 8.5.

I drift into and out of consciousness as they wheel me to the ward.

That night, between to pain, the nurse waking me every 2 hours to take blood pressure and pulse and dear David next to me, I sleep in 20 minute shifts... mostly just dozing. Concentrating on my breathing and trying to keep my mind off the pain.

David. Ah David. David is a forty-something bloke. A beheomouth of a man with the mind of a six year-old. I'm sure he's a lovely guy... but at 1 in the morning... just when I drop off, he wants to play with his coloring-in books. He chats loudly, continuously. He has a nurse in attendance every second... who I guess was bored too, becuase they entertain him. At 4 in the morning when he is whining he cannot find his purple felt-tip marker I felt like finding it for him, then shoving it up his arse! I just couldn't move. This continues till 6 in the morning. Bejeesus, Mary and Joseph!

Everyone in the ward loved David!

I couln't do another night of that without harming others so am immensely pleased when I hear from the surgeon in the morning that the surgery went well and I can go home as soon as my pain is under control, hopefully that afternoon.

I wait till 3 o'clock for my perscribed pain-killers to turn up... this is 7 hours since my last dose... I'm in agony. Pain under control? Like fuck! But I smile and act perky because there is no frikkin way I'm spending another night next to dear David. Physical pain can be managed with the mind... and is forgotten quickly... mental/emotional pain is more difficult to manage. I wanted out of there!

I'm jovial and discharge myself saying that my mother is waiting for me in the parking lot. Behind that smile I was almost crying. I feel weak and am in agony... but I swallow a handful of pills and make it to the chevy that was still waiting for me in the parking-lot. Christ! That short walk  seemed like a long way!

The 5 miles home seemed to take hours.

Almost 3 days after they cut me open like a tin of spam... and it still hurts like fuck. But I'm back at work and feeling better about everything.

I'll get some cool x-rays and scans up as soon as I get them...