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switzerland

Boo hoo, I broke my leg: Broken Leg Part 2

You think about some sad stuff in hospital.

Me, I thought about people I’d visited in hospital; my mother, father and my grandmother, and Jane, and how they were all dead now.

I thought about how physical pain diminishes a human being. I thought about all the terrible suffering in the world and how little I was having to deal with, by comparison with hundreds of thousands of people in the world, especially the tsunami victims. I thought about the horrors of life before pain killers, and how ‘pain relief’ doesn’t actually mean that they get rid of the pain, just that they reduce it enough so that you stop screaming, or don’t pass out.

None of this came as news to me, by the way; but the acute experience of sharing, even to some small extent, what had happened to my mother, to Jane and to other people whose bodies have been broken, did give me some insight, just for a few days, and it was pitiful. I don’t mind admitting that I cried hot salty tears for many of the nights (only when the pain levels came down though, because real pain makes you selfish; you can’t think of anything else and you don’t care, not unless you are a saint).

I realised that the crying was a useful was to release tension, from which I suffered quite a bit, being immobilised on my back with my leg up on a support. Sometimes I even chose to listen to something that would turn on the tap. My sister-in-law Rachel lent me her iPod, complete with her own musical selection.

So here are my top tunes for inducing the night-time boo-hoos.

1. Angels (Robbie Williams)

2. Feel (Robbie Williams) Damn, that boy writes some good sentimental songs. And he met my mother. Once, when she was with the Manchester Olympic Committee, she met all the lads from Take That.

3. English Suite No2 (JS Bach) Just because it’s so beautiful; it seems you appreciate beauty more when suffering.

4. Anyone Who Has A Heart (Dionne Warwick, by Bacharach) Oh who knows why this one set me off. I was missing my baby daughter.

And to cheer you up:

1. Cosmic Girl (Jamiroquai) I was fair dancing in my bed.

2. Voi che sapete (Marriage of Figaro, Mozart) Well, anything from this opera cheered me up.

3. Any song by Celia Cruz. La Reina de la Salsa! If I could have had salsa to listen to from the beginning I would probably have healed faster! Thank goodness for my conga drums. Playing them is almost as good as dancing.

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switzerland

It’s All About Me – Broken Leg Part 1

We were kindly invited by Laura, my baby brother Michael’s sister-in-law, to spend Christmas in Gstaad, Switzerland.

On Dec 28th, I decided to switch from my snowboarding lessons – where progress was slow and bruising, to skiing, which I do poorly but at least can stay upright for more than ten minutes at a time.

I agreed, with Tom, a cousin of Michael’s wife, to share an instructor, Rolf. We all departed for the Eggli mountain and Rolf and I hit the chair lift with enthusiasm. Well, me with some trepidation, because it can be tricky to get off those when you are as clueless a skier as I, but somehow I made it off the machine and remained upright. I mean, it’s been 4 years since I last skied and 15 years since I did a chair lift; it wasn’t bad going!

Rolf and I skied down the top part of the mountain a couple of times and rode up on the T bar. The T bar was easy, but I had the feeling that Rolf was making this so. The third time down the mountain, Rolf looked at the T bar, shrugged and said “This time, let’s go down the mountain”.

One of those flashes of insight, which I have stupidly trained myself to ignore (because of all that scientific training, the requirement for evidence and such rot), told me that I should NOT go down the mountain. I was tiring; I could feel that I wasn’t leaning forward enough in my boots, my toes weren’t pointing quite enough, the skis didn’t feel like extensions of my feet; in summary, I still felt as though I were strapped into two slidey bits of plastic on a slippy, slidey mountain.

But the silly, rational part overrode that insight with sensible thoughts like “If the instructor thinks you are doing okay then it will be fine. And then you can use the chair lift to get back. And you’ll feel great when you get down there!”

We made a left turn down a narrower part of the piste, where I had to turn three times in quick succession – and was just beginning to feel comfortable, when the Rolf urged me to join him further down. At the last minute, I lost my nerve; he was on a narrow section, in front of a tree and I wasn’t sure I could stop in time. So I swerved towards the apparent safety of the fresh powder at the side of the piste.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

As I snow-plowed into the powder, my right ski connected with something very unpowdery, and stopped abrubtly. The left ski slid neatly beneath that locked right ski and when the boot connected, I fell forward with the force…and didn’t come out of the bindings, but instead felt my leg break against the top of the boot.

Well, panic, panic, screams for help, the instructor came over and held me as I struggled to stay conscious, waiting for the rescue sled.It was a long and painful 25 minutes. I wondered vaguely what the next hours and days would hold in store. My worst case scenario was a minor break, a plaster cast and back to the ranch in time for tea.

But no. The face of the radiologist (at Spital Saanen) fell when she saw the break and she said, abruptly; “It’s broken and for sure we have to operate”.Well, the rest was 48 hours of pure pain, pain, pethidine shots, an untimely fever, a quite wonderful operation under epidural, during which I opted for Mozart and sedation, quite a lovely hour by comparison with the rest.

Then 48 hours with the epidural still in place to spare me the horrors of post-operative agony, then the return of the pain and more lovely pethidine. Once the fever and intestinal effects of that fever had cleared my system, I felt surprisingly strong and was able, with crutches, to hobble to the bathroom and give myself a shower and change of hospital gown.

So they let me go. All in all, as wretched it is to be in hospital and in pain, a ski injury isn’t much to complain about. It’s partly your own fault and you aren’t actually sick.I thought a lot about Jane, and Monica (whose leg was chomped by bacteria within an inch of her life), and I couldn’t feel sorry for myself. But I did feel sorry for poor David and my kids. Anyway, it’s home to bed and three months recuperation for me. What will I do with myself?

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switzerland

Oh, The Things That You’ll Do

So I finally got my dream of being able to stay in bed and watch TV all day. I had to break my leg to get it, but what are you gonna do? But it’s a long story and I’ve missed loads of the lead-up-to-Christmas stuff, so why don’t I fill you in on the whole shebang…