Previous Post!

Let‘s go back a little in this story. I feel I need to provide some information with regards to my injury.

The Patellar Tendon runs from the kneecap to the Tibia, the bone under your Knee. The rupture meant I had in effect severed this tendon, removing it from the knee cap, resulting in me losing the ability to straighen my  leg and my knee cap to be lodged about 3 inches higher than it normally was.

The repair involved the surgeon, making a incision of about 6 inches vertically up the knee, drilling 3 holes in my kneecap and basically sewing the tendon back onto it.

Recovery involves the tendon healing and scar tissue forming to help everything re attach. That’s it in a nutshell, well to the best of my knowledge anyway, I never got very detailed accounts.

I googled pretty much everything to try and gain a better understading of what was happening, and more importantly, going to happen.

Back to the story…..

The rest of Saturday passed in a bit of a blur. I was still a little woozy from the earlier Rice Crispie incident. My friends came to visit, bringing with them smiles, helium filled baloons and Haribo!

I slept better that night, I’d eaten a little and I was so tired I even managed to block out the middle of the night chatter from my ward companions.

Sunday morning brought about a shift change and a new nurse, however the Sister was still in attendance. The new nurse was brilliant, she promised she would try and get me released later in the day. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to get home and into my own bed.

Under her watchful gaze I managed to make it to the rest room all by myself, she did however follow me with a wheelchair in case of emergencies.

Satsified that I was walking she arranged for me to go and be fitted with my leg brace, which was to be my constant companion for the next 3 months or so.  I’d walked relatively ok in the post surgery one so I had high hopes that the new one would be the same.

I was placed into a wheelchair with alien leg on a little platform to keep her up and safe. A lovely porter, who just happened to be a gamer came to collect me and we chatted about consoles and what was hot or not in the gaming world as we sped through the corridors to the Fracture Clinic.

Once there, it was out of the chair and onto a higher one, kind of like a dentists chair. The two gentlemen who had cut me out of my cast the previous Tuesday, removed the temporary brace, all my bandages, checked my wound, put on a smaller dressing and then fitted me with the new one.

Back into the wheelchair and my friend is back, push push, more chit chat and within the space of 45 minutes I was back at my bed. I was worn out, kinda hard to believe really considering I hadn’t done anything!

My nurse was all business trying to get me sorted out to go home, tablets and injections were ordered. I was given a box of Laxido (in my head pronounced Laxidoooo to help you poooooo) just in case, as I had not been able to….well you get the drift!

It worked not to bad actually, because the sight of the box, and all the injections  I was to take with me were enough to scare the shit out of anyone!!

They decided I could go home. Not that I was glad or anything, but I started packing straight away!

I changed out of the pink nightshirt, and back into my cow print pj bottoms and started to walk down to the toilet. It was going to be a long journey home.

Panic set in, I couldn’t walk in the new brace. My earlier freedom of movement was gone. Now when I stepped forwards my leg felt like it was being pulled in about 5 different directions and I was thinking this brace can’t possibly be on right. I was in quite a bit of pain, so much so I was beginning to wonder had I somehow hurt myself again. I called over the Doctor on duty but he wasn’t to sure about how leg braces were supposed to work. I asked “Do you think it’s ok” and his reply was “Aye it should be”. Now there’s confidence for you.

Feck it I thought, I don’t want to be here another night, I want to go home, so shut up and ship out! and thats what I did!

To be continued….