Injury… Part 1

Ten weeks ago, I broke my wrist.

Since I can remember, I’ve always been somewhat accident prone (I’ve had enough sprains and have plenty of scars to bear testimony to this fact) but I thought (hoped, as it turns out) that I was beyond the breaking of any bones. Clearly not the case.

On the 2 minute drive to the hospital I still believed it was just a bad dislocation or sprain. But, I ended up in a hospital ward with a severely fractured wrist (what happens when you try to break 82 kilos with your forearm).

The nurses and people who saw me were a little confused at my outward reactions to my injury. I was entirely too cheerful for someone with a broken arm, and made use of only one vial of painkillers. But I’ve become very good at hiding my struggles and the smile on my face was hiding the weirdest thoughts, and when I was alone eventually, I allowed myself to freak out a little bit.

I went through the entire emotional spectrum in one day. My initial reaction was guilt, because of the worry and inconvenience I would be giving my family, who was already dealing with a lot. I was more worried about how my parents would react than the injury itself (it took just about all the reserves I had not to cry when my Dad came to the hospital – me in this situation meant I couldn’t help him until I was healed again).

Anxiety set in when they moved me into the resuscitation room at the ER before sedating me to reset the bones. Embarrassment made an appearance when they brought me out of sedation. It was such a trippy experience, I was slurring my words for the first few minutes, and for the first time since I had my last serious accident at seven years old, I needed someone to help put my pants back on after going to the toilet (thank goodness I could at least manage relieving myself by myself).

After the ER doctor performed the closed reduction, the orthopaedic surgeon gave me two options: I opted for the surgical route. By 1pm I was booked into a room with surgery scheduled for the following morning.

The following morning was a comedy of errors. Nurse woke me at 5am to take my vitals. Another nurse walks in to remind me to take my pre-surgery shower, but tells me that there is no hot water due to some plumbing issue and that they would bring in a bucket of hot water for me. Trying to disinfect myself head to toe with one working hand was so much harder than it sounds, but no way was I going to ask someone to come wash me. It took me 45 minutes to get through that process.

When they wheeled me into surgery, I panicked. What if I had a weird reaction to the anesthesia? What if there were complications during the procedure? What if I didn’t wake up after?

Post-surgery

I did wake up, with a metal plate holding the bones of my forearm together, and the first words I heard were the anaesthesiologist telling me that all went well.

Injury of any kind is never welcome, but since the moment it happened, there has been much introspection. I had to lean on others for the first time in a long time (another lesson I needed to learn). My eyes were really opened to those I cannot count on, and I have a renewed appreciation for those whom I can count on.

I also tried to be positive throughout, and to focus on good moments – my five year old niece sneaking in to visit me at the hospital, the kind porter that refused to let me walk to radiology, the male nurse who helped dress me without compromising my dignity, another kind porter that took my earrings off before wheeling me to surgery, my fit-family who got me to the ER within five minutes, my actual family who rallied in ways I never imagined.

Prior to this accident happening, especially on days where I felt overwhelmed with all the different roles I play in the lives of the people around me, I had often wondered what it would take for me to take a real break from my busy life, and I often thought that it most likely would only happen if I ended up in the hospital. Biggest lesson I learnt was to guard my thoughts as I would guard my words.

Recovery not been linear, and its been fraught with emotional and mental battles too…but it has been constant. Even though I do still have many limitations, most of my day to day functioning has returned.

Every week so far has brought with it an improvement, and no matter how small or far between the wins are, I’ll take them all.