Our family and close friends, my Twitter Tweeps and FB followers, will all know why there has been, even for me, an abnormally long pause between posts here on my blog. For those readers who don’t, on 28th October ten minutes into the journey home after a lovely weekend at my daughter’s in Oxfordshire, we were the unfortunate victims of a fairly hairy, not to say could have been fatal, car accident. More details may emerge in future posts, but for now the bare bones (pun sort of intended) are that my OH suffered a broken wrist, severe bruising to his chest and other bumps and bruises. I was in hospital for just over 2 weeks with a broken sternum, small pneumo-thorax (little puncture to the lung), fragmented right os calcis (heel bone) and a friction burn on the back of my right hand from the air bag.
Naturally there has been a mass of material for blog posts and creative and/or non-fiction writing and I hope to make the very best of it I can over the next few weeks, months, or even years :). But a lot of it could be quite dark and depressing, so I thought I would start with a little recount of our start to this morning on day 33 of The Saga of The Uden Accident:
Firstly, by way of prior explanation, a little background detail. The plaster that was put on my foot and lower leg, with spontaneous and not requested pretty blue heart, is removable and held together by strong Velcro straps.
When I was discharged from the hospital, I was told by the wonderful team of physiotherapists that I should take it off every day and try, the best I can, which is not very, to mobilize my ankle by moving it up and down. As the plaster is quite thick and solid, the ankle and heel still swollen and painful to touch and my hands weakened by arthritis, and now carrying my body weight on crutches and zimmer for 4+ weeks, I need help to remove said plaster.
Statements from OH like:
“We haven’t had your leg off today!” or
“Would you like your leg off now?”
Are met with mixed reception, as some sympathetic folks might imagine.
This morning, after a pretty grotty, painful and wakeful night, typically I fell asleep in the early hours and was late waking. The best way of dealing with the shower routine (for reasons that could be worth a blog post of their own with some possible giggles) is that I go first, as I cause a certain degree of havoc in the bathroom which needs clearing up after I have emerged. (After nearly 30 years of it being the other way around, I am only feeling very slightly guilty!)
So we were in a bit of hurry and a rush to fit it all in and together we wrestled the silly plaster off, and OH padded off in his night attire to prepare all the paraphernalia for my shower. I lay there on the bed, fiddled with my I-phone and tried to waggle said ankle as much as I could.
Then I started on the rounds of 3 different exercises that are meant to stop the complete wasting of the muscles in my upper leg. (A case of stable door, horse and bolted actually - because it already looks pretty skeletal). OH came back and declared he would have another ten minutes zzzzzz while I finished my exercises.
One hundred a day is the plan, so I was working through 25 each of stretching the back of the knee down to the bed, bending the knee into the chest, and lastly raising the whole leg vertically in the air through 90 degrees. I had done a few of the last, when OH muttered.
‘OK, shall we put your leg back on, or are you still doing your exercises?”
Looking at my leg waving in the air in front of my face, I suggested he open his eyes for the answer to his question – and that if only we were on camera it would make an excellent bedroom farce!
