Saturday I had quite a down day, fed up of pain, not washing properly, the boys have been quite busy so I haven’t seen much of them. I did manage to watch the rugby at a friends house for a couple of hours but I felt really out of sorts and couldn’t get into the spirit, I came home and had a cry and felt a little better after that.
Sunday I had my first ‘walk’ out in the sunshine it was sooo nice to be out!
I was exhausted when I got home and needed a little nap. My leg was quite swollen up too so I tried the cryocuff to ice it. A great contraption to pump iced water around my knee, eased the pain and brought swelling down- thanks Griff for the loan! I shall be doing a lot more of this!
Sunday afternoon my friend Em took me out for a coffee, it was lovely to do something normal for an hour and catch up on the news. I have tried to be as ‘active’ as possible, pain and sleepiness allowing, as my bum is getting sore and numb from sitting down so much! It doesn’t know what has hit it!!
At night the brace is really uncomfortable to sleep in, I can only really sleep on my back, getting up to go to the loo at night is a major effort too! Every time I get vertical it feels like the blood rushes to my leg and produces a surge of pain which takes a minute to adjust to, and then I have just got to take my time to negotiate the steps down and up to the bathroom, I won’t go in to detail but the rest of the business isn’t easy in a full length fixed brace either!
Tuesday – I am trying to manage the pain with just paracetamol and keep the codeine for the night time. I am trying not to use Ibruprofen as it can delay bone healing. My back and hip are sore from the odd positions of sitting/sleeping and walking with a straight leg. I’m still really slow walking with the crutches.
Steve took me to see mum as I haven’t been able to see her for a couple of weeks now. The change in her, in that time, was shocking. She has lost even more weight and hardly looks like my mum at all. Her eyes are sunken and she was drifting in and out of consciousness, she still seems to have some pain. I couldn’t stop the tears rolling down my cheeks as I held her tiny hands. She continues to have dental problems that are causing her pain and she is hardly eating or drinking anything bless her. The nurses have been great and are managing her pain with morphine patches and top ups of paracetamol when needed.
So when I got back home my brother Dave rang to say that our 86 year old dad had fallen down the stairs and has broken his hip! Thankfully my brother was on hand when it happened and even broke his fall- it could have been a lot worse! I’m so grateful to Dave and his wife Laura who live with Dad and look after him day to day, they made the right call by driving him to hospital rather than waiting for an ambulance.
Steve dropped everything, I left the boys ‘helping each other’ with their homework, and we zoomed to the hospital. Dad was being incredibly brave and cracking jokes with the nurses even though he was in a lot of pain. He will need surgery to fix his hip so in the meantime he has been given morphine and he is as comfortable as possible.- What a day!
Wednesday- So over a week now since I last showered, it was time to get creative with the bin bags and tape!
I sat on a stool in the shower with my leg sticking out of the door and did a one legged sit down/ stand up shower. Feels so good to be properly clean!
The leg is looking a bit yellow from the bruising and still looks an odd shape from swelling but otherwise the wound seems ok! I’m going to start some upper body work and abs stuff in the next couple of days now that I can shower.
A few phone calls to make now and e mails to catch up on and then into the hospital to visit Dad. Ed and I got up early to make some welsh cakes for him- Ed made the dough and I instructed from the sidelines and then cooked them on the Griffin ‘Maen’ (the cast iron griddle that dad made many years ago).
Here is to a speedy recovery Dad!
xxxx Kitty