Pt 2: My right leg AND my left leg, well let's just say it's my legs in general!

This is the well anticipated second instalment of my journey from whatever I was to whatever I'll become once this is all done and dusted. As to who I was? I don't know! As for who I'll become? I don't know either! Well I don't know is a good place to start as Rene Descartes will tell you :-P

This follows on from Pt 1, naturally. If you're yet to read it then I don't blame you as I know I can be tediously convoluted at the best of times. So what happened next!? The cutters did their cutting :-D What actually happened next was a four to five hour procedure to remove the disc stuff that was pushing on my nerves. I haven't seen the incision but it was only a couple of inches to access two discs. Impressive stuff I assure you. Not gonna say any more as I would have to research the details of the op and I know you are all ever so capable of doing that yourselves :-P

So here's one of the weirder experiences of my life, coming out of anaesthetic. Breathing is hard, perception is...conflicted? I don't feel like myself, you know how we have a default setting? How we feel day to day, moment to moment. I feel detached and then I try to reason what is happening. The first thought that springs to mind is that I me and my body have parted company. Scares me so I fight to breathe and glance furiously around the room. I feel heavy, yes I am about 100kg but like there is something pressing on me constantly. Invisible lead soup! A nice lady points out that I've got a new toy to play with, patient controlled analgesia!

The thing at the top is a button that was strapped to my right hand and the syringe would have been full of morphine!

It's a morphine pump that I've been given control of for a few days. My perception of time has become somewhat muddled. I was admitted on the night of Thursday the 5th and the operation was in the morning on Saturday the 6th of September. Perhaps it was the drugs, unfamiliar atmosphere, pain or fear but my usual uber memory seems to have broken down with regards to chronology. When people came to see me, when I was moved etc. appear to have happened in no particular order. Everything happened at once...sounds like the mumblings of a someone who's tripping on something right?

So when they wheel me back to the ward I'm greeted by the familiar faces of my mother and brother. As well as two lovely family friends who stuck around with mum n bro whilst I was being tinkered with. I am tired and confused but I want to chat so I try to talk to them. Only problem is that my powers of focus are in tatters. I would start a conversation and mid sentence I'd drift off to sleep. Oh and there is this oxygen mask on my face that muffle my already quiet voice. I briefly revert to my rough Grimsby voice, I was kinda a badass back in the day so I had the rough scary tones to go along with it.

Funnily enough when speaking in my "old" voice I said the word garage as it would be said in the home counties not how everyone else said it "garidge".

I notice that my chin really, really hurts. I've been hit in the face a lot but this is something akin to a carpet burn/bruise/rash. It's purple, raised and tender to the touch. We decided it's probably because I'd been face down for the past 4-5 hours with an oxygen mask on. I ate nothing that day, Though I have been known to fast from time to time this really isn't not like me at all!

Wasn't too sure what to do with this little nugget of info but I may as well be as honest as I can be. So I've just had my back operated on so I can't leave the bed. I'm being dosed with strong opiates so my bowels have seized up solving problem number two, savvy? Numero uno is still in full flow! In other words I have to pee! Now they could've catheterised me but they didn't. I can't leave the bed, for now, so what do I do? Any guesses? Here's a clue:

Anything springing to mind? Guess I'd better spell it it out in case some of yall are baffled by what such a receptacle could be used for. I had to pee in a cardboard bottle for a week or so. Strangely enough I wasn't drinking much but felt the enormous urge to urinate. Upon closer inspection the cannula in my arm was hooked up to morphine and a drip! Well after 4 or five failed attempts I relaxed enough to let it all out. I think these could do with being a bit bigger tbh. Firstly because some men are longer than others, if you get that reference I love you and will marry you. And secondly if you are bursting then there just isn't enough capacity. It's a real problem!

My swashbuckling surgeon comes by and asks me to move my feet, I got nothing! Now this was a little alarming at first. Mostly because I'd come in with numbness in both legs and a dead right foot. I now still have numbness in both legs and both my feet are dead :-S He asks me if I've got sensation, which I did and still do. Sensory and motor run down the same pathways so if one is there then the other has to be too. It's just a case of waiting for all the swelling, bruising, stretching + other misc. damage to repair itself. For a few days it stays this way. and I dip my toe into the depths of depression.

Strangely it wasn't the thought of me being paralysed from the knees down. It was the strain being placed on my nearest and dearest. A sentiment I shared with my mother in an effort to apologise for being hurt. Now I cried at this point. Those of you who've read my blogs know I'm no stranger to crying. But as it turns out this is the first time my mother had seen me cry since I was 8-9 years old. I've since resolved not to do it again. Dad gives me a ring from India having heard of my peculiar emotional state and explains that a few days after coming out of anaesthetic people tend to feel rather low. Turns out this may have been the result of coming down.

So in the days that follow I channel all efforts to wiggling my toes. You ever heard the phrase "you reap what you sow"? Well all the effort I put in made my left foot leap into action. Now leap is a little bit of a strong word it's mostly that I managed to move it up and down a bit. Then righty joins in, right toe to be specific. Upon hearing me retell the tale of how I willed my feet back to life Swapnal remarks it reminds him of this scene in kill bill 2:



Oh the day the physios came! Two nice physio lads came and helped me out of bed to see what I could do. Turns out not a whole lots! They did say they'd bring back something called an Arjo to get me walking. Weird thing for you folks. Without use leg muscles wither away at an alarming rate. Three days of being in bed made my calves and quads disappear. Whilst my upper body is pretty much as I left it, musclewise. I admit it the alure of regular food has drawn me to the dark side and I'm now in no shape at all.

You stand within the frame and walk whilst supporting what your legs can't through your arms. I managed about 20 metres before running out of steam. As you all know my upper body doesn't really do endurance. So in the days that follow I graduate to a gutter frame.

It's like a zimmerframe with wheels and handles. This burns out my chest, shoulders and triceps! All the time my feet are making strides towards full range of motion. It's around now that I notice righty has overtaken lefty! Lefty feels swollen and unwieldy. I'm moved from Stow in the dead of night, about 21:40 to Naustadt-Welton. I feel a little strange, I'd grown to love the bustle of Stow. It's a trauma ward you see so it's firing on all pistons day and night. But here I am in the elective surgery ward. It's quieter but I still can't sleep.

This is where I'm first introduced to Amy, she's from Bardney and has just found out she's pregnant with her first baby! I've been doing my best to remember the names of all the wardstaff who looked after me so well. I made a list, in my mind! But I've grown lax in my updating of said list since I've had access to a laptop. I was the most vulnerable I've been in many years. I was a soft kid who toughened up a bit too much after moving away from Bucks. The kindness and level of care I received from the staff I can't really put into words how much I appreciate what they did. They did pretty much everything, I couldn't stand, sit up or twist.

The next day I'm wheeled into the bathroom and I notice there's a shower. It's been four days since I'd had a shower. Once I'm done I pull a red cord and Rach appears. She makes a point of introducing herself and explains how oddly topsy turvy the patient nurse relationship can be! I ask if it'd be ok for me to have a shower...why not is the reply! I get a new water proof dressing for my back. That shower was AMAZING! Dunno how to express the awesomeness of this shower. The only way I can try and convey it is this, don't shower for a day. I'm talking 24 hours just go without showering, use deodorant, antiperspirant etc. Then take a shower and see what it's like, imagine that x 4!

Funnily enough this isn't the longest I've gone without taking a shower. The longest would have been 6 days when I was at Hawes :-D Did you guys take have a trip away when you were in year six? We went away for a week to Hawes. Where we walked, climbed rocks, walked, went caving, walked, mountain biked, walked, sketched, walked, player pool, walked, oh and did I mention we walked? Man did we walk a lot! Here's what I remember about the trip. We got there n trekked about six miles on the first day before getting to the place we were staying.

I think there were six of us in a room lets see if I can remember who I was staying with! Craig, Niall, Tom, Scott and Stephen. I remember Scott mooned the girls out the window and farted. This caused the window to steam up completely and everyone in the room to fall about laughing for a good five minutes. Someone bought a can of fart spray, sprayed it on their finger and wiped it under someone's nose. Fake cigarettes! I bought a bunch of gifts for my family and left them in a public toilet. Luckily the year group was on a staggered schedule and they were found by another group. When we went caving the guy leading us tricked us into thinking we could see in the dark. We met up with the second Ben Wright who had moved away from Scartho in year 2.

We caused a cow stampede by running through a field. We started running through a field, why you ask? Well we're 10/11 year old boys the question should be why weren't we already running through this field?! The answer to that would be that we were kinda knackered from all the walking, at least I was! Anyways the field is slightly downhill and those of you familiar with how gravity works will realise that this resulted in us speeding up. The rest of the group are looking at us from a distance thinking "what a bunch of tools!" We end up going through a bunch of cows, what's the technical name? Well it's herd of course! Or Hird I knew a girl with the second name Hird, she's a teacher now! The cows are somewhat startled by our sudden appearance. I'd like to think they were inspired by our childish whimsy, I know the former is much more likely. And they leg it! This alarms us so we run even faster. We hop the nearest turnstile/gate,  I can't remember which it was! Shortly afterwards a herd of 50 or so cows have crammed themselves up against the gate.

This manouvre neatly cut us off from the rest of the group and pissed the farmer, whose land we were rambling across, off!

It's gonna be three weeks soon enough and I'm yet to have a proper nights sleep. Odd surroundings, drugs, pain and a mind that appears to be rewiring itself. I don't know what into just yet. But I feel more and more that whilst this event has me as the main player the purpose is linked to all associated with it. I'm being obtuse as what I really think would take at least another 1000 words to explain. Ain't nobody got time for that! :P

I've only recently gotten hold of this laptop. Before then I was hand writing copious notes of what happened. I've never written one of these based on notes before so I've put them to one side for the time being.