the right leg is marked with an arrow in case of error

Stuff Happens

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So back in ARI the usual non-emergency routine swung into place: next of kin, blood, chat with medics, the fast, the pill, the shower, the mirth-provoking backless flowery gown. In the course of all which I tried to get a promise to keep the removed femur for me afterwards, for I fancied having it on the mantelpiece as a memento mori - a reminder to be more careful in future. No luck there; but they offered to take photos, so I gave a medical student my camera, urging complete coverage of everything.

Presently the trolley came and I was wheeled along the labyrinth of corridors and into the blackness where stuff happened that I know only from the pictures that the student took. You may prefer not to see them, in which case look away now.

removal of broken femur and failed plate, and closing up after the prosthesis in inserted

In what seemed a moment I was in a recovery place and soon thence into a ward.

Still dozy, I was shown two buttons, one to press for more morphine and the other to call for help, but registered them only vaguely. It seemed very cold, I wanted another blanket, and fumbled with the help button. And dropped it. So maybe more morphine? I groped about for the morphine button but couldn’t find it.

It got colder … I was on the summit plateau of Ben Macdui in a whiteout, hoping not to see the Fear Liath Mòr [see Attack of the Earworms. posted Sep 2013]. The fog became thicker, closed in, became a shiny tunnel. This wasn’t the Macdui of 1953, this was surely the famous shiny white Tunnel of Death? It was very peaceful, a relief not to have to deal with the prunes and the stairs and so on … just to be allowed to drift …

But no, drifting was stopped sharply. Someone was shaking me and saying urgently “Don’t you dare, don’t you DARE fade out after all that work we put in.” It was the surgeon, a most excellent, witty lady, who in no time at all dissolved the shiny tunnel with a massive input of blood. Later they said I’d lost 4 pints of blood, about half the total, so I suppose that would be how it feels to bleed out.

Farewell, tunnel, and hello, prunes and zimmer and once again that steep climb towards mobility. But it was nice to have known the moment of utter peace.

Better still, as soon as I got upright and tried zimmering, I knew it was okay. This time, I was walking feebly but properly. This time the stairs would be a doddle.

One day, when the stitches were out and everything looked fine, the question of rehab arose, because it wasn’t yet feasible to cope with living alone. Where to go, Inverurie or Woodend, just up the road from ARI? I thought I’d try Woodend.

Oh no, not another huge Nightingale ward! Too hot, too little room between beds. But no matter, soon be out of here and back home. Meantime, get walking, practise getting socks on (amazingly hard to do).

A few days passed, and one morning I felt a strange shivering tremor, and suddenly it seemed very cold. I rang to ask for another blanket, the nurse looked, checked my temperature and soon they took a sample of blood. In no time at all my bed was wheeled along to the end of the ward, where there was a separate room that used to be a cupboard, and vancomycin was dripping into a vein.

I had MRSA, it seemed, and the course of treatment would likely take 12 weeks, and I wasn’t going home until the antibiotic cleared the bug ... If it did.

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(Will Old’n’Idle enjoy life in the Cupboard? Can vancomycin defeat the MRSA? Next instalment may possibly reveal the answer. Or not.)