Halo Time

WOW. So its nearly all over? Well, the hospital phase anyway. I was wheeled back to my little room by a cute Dr with one of those silly little blue cloth hats. "Nice hat" ... "Thanks, Do you want one?" ... "I'm alright thanks" :) It was soooooo good to be able to SEE. I wasnt perminantly horizontal and my view streched further than the hospital ceiling. When I got to my room, I saw there was a little telly on the table across the room. sweeeeeeeet. Mum turned it on but it turned out there was no controller. So I'm only alowed to watch one channel? (since I cant yet stand up) oh well, I'll just watch telly when Im home. OMG...home.
I really couldnt wait and the Dr said if everything looked good after the physiotherapists saw me then I could go home the next day!
Sam (smiley asian Dr) came to check my frame and screws. Awwwhhh, he is so LITTLE. He looked fairly tall when I was lying flat but now I was sat up and had some perspective, I saw he was the same hight as my mum. Bless - I 'hearted' him :P
Next came a friendly Mexican man in a green sweater. He had a catalogue in one hand and an extended grabbing aid thinggy. He was talking quite alot but his accent was pretty heavy so most of the time I just nodded. (The next week, all these disabled aids arived at my house including a grey plastic stool..why on earth did I need that? haha)

The Physio girls came to have a look at me after a bit - they were quite young and very friendly. The tall one said to me: "Do you want to have a go at standing up?" YEAH i dooo. So I slowly moved so my feet were dangeling off the bed. So far so good. The cold floor felt so nice on my toes and they made contact. I was up on my feet in no time...and little dizzy but fairly steady. I took a few steps around the room with the Physio at my side. She told me to have a go at sitting down on the chair and that was it for the day.
I WAS FREE (almost)

I stayed there for the night. It was lovely not having to lie so flat but the best way with the halo was to sleep sitting upright. If I reclined too much then the weight of my skull felt like it was pulling on the front pins.
I didnt sleep much that night but it was ok. I was pretty content listening to my iPod.
The next day my parents got to the hospital at about 10:30am and I had another go at walking around. I decided to use the loo..the REAL loo. It was SO nice to not need the nurse. I felt like I had some of my dignity back.
I then saw myself in the mirror for the first time. YIKES. I really did look a bit Frankinsteinish but I wasnt as bothered by it as I thought I would be.
The rest of the day went pretty slowly as I waited for the go-ahead to leave the hospital.
I had another sesh with the Physio...all went well. I tried the stairs and felt so confident that I absent mindedly started going up the next flight when the physio said that I really needn't. Coming back down was a little bit trickyer, as I couldnt look down to see where I was putting my feet - but over all, good progress made.

My consultant came in a bit later when I was back on the bed and saw the dramatic clump of hair next to me on my bed. "Souvenir?". When I first found it I nearly had a heart attack. Was I loosing my hair from stress? From hitting my head so hard? Then I realised that it was just from the bits they shaved behind my ears for the pin sites. My hair is pretty long so it looked like loads.
Anyway, Granger, my consultant who would check up on me in Worcester just told me about the halo and talked some things through with me.
Just before I left, a stroppy Dr. who helped fit the halo (the one that slipped with the scalpel) asked if I had any questions.
"Urm, yeh. My neck feels really squashed when Im standing up. It goes all fat. And is it normal to feel sick all the time?" to which the answer was fairly unhelpful and moody. Something along the lines of: "You're neck is aligned and shouldnt feel different. You now have a better posture (which wasnt true) and there is no reason to feel sick - its all in your head."
...riiiight - thanks.

We were given some supplies for cleaning the pin sites and in the evening, I was FINALY alowed to come home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Birmingham

It was time for another trip in an ambulance. Apparently they wanted to fly me to the other hospital in a helicopter but there was no heli-pad at the Royal Orthopaedic - duh! So they put me on an extra flat extra hard board and drove me to B'ham. The actual injury to my spine didn't really hurt at all, but the lump on the back of my head which showed no signs of going down in the three days since the accident was hardly tolerable. The 40min ride was pretty bumpy [why don't they make ambulances smooth?] and by the time we got there I couln't help but urge them to get my off the board and onto a bed where the insufferable pain in the back of my head would chill out. "sorry, but could you just put me onto a bed?" as we waited in the hallway for them to make the bed. "any bed, I really dont mind if its not got sheets for now, pleeeeease?"

After a few more minutes of this they wheeled me into my own little room and unloaded me onto a beautifuly squishy bed. Mmmmmm. Thats when I met Fit-Doctor-Nurse guy - again, Mmmmm :P.
Fit-Doctor-Nurse guy looked to manly to be a nurse...so I decided that he was a Dr/nurse. Anyway, he was lovely and very caring. I felt so much better at this hospital. I had my own room, nice staff around me and most importantly things didnt seem to drag as much as they did in the last place.
A real sweet and very smiley asian Dr called Sam was the one who told me what course of action was to be taken. After a few hrs or not being sure whether I was going to need an opperation or a halo he let me know that it was to be a halo. YESSS!!!!!
You'll be in it for 3 months
I'LL BE IN IT FOR HOW LONG?!
upto 3 months. ... :/
And within just another hour or so, I was being wheeled into the room where they were going to fit it. The room was fairly small with Disney pictures all over the walls and full of Drs wearing silly little blue hats that tied under their chins. If I hadnt been so nervous, I would have laughed my head off at this queer scene.

The Fitting
This was not the most pleasant of experiances.The local anesthetic shots stung like a bitch which didnt seem very fair. It was wierd having 4 Dr.s and 2 nurses crowded round me but to start with it felt kind of reassuring that I had so many people watching over me. It was when they all started to squabble that I got a bit unnerved. "Is it straight?"..."urmmm does it look straight to you? You're the one in the middle"..."pass me the scalple...NOW"..."I'll just make this cut a bit bigger...oops"
WHAT DO YOU MEAN OOPS?!
[I later realised from the long scab behind my ear that he had slipped ..good one!!]
After lots of twisting and skull crunching sounds, the halo was fitted. The head Doc asked me if I could open and close my eyes because sometimes if the front pins are in a certain place, you cant close your eyes and they have to refit it. =O luckily that wasnt the case.

They told me I was now alowed to sit up. So i tried. HOLY CRAP IM PARALYSED. No matter how hard I tried to lift my body for the first time in 3 days, it wouldnt budge. The effort made me feel sick so I asked the slightly dosy man who was the only person left in the room if he could maybe find me a sick bowl. Never rely on a dosy man in times of urgent need.
I sat up...the force of me being sick left me no choice. It was gross. My stomach muscles hurt so much from the strain, and the worst part of it was that it went all down the synthetic sheep skin vest which I couldnt get wet and therefore couldnt wash. Crap.

A&E

So, I arrive at A&E at about 9:00am - still strapped up and lying on my back.

I waited for the doctor to come and see me...and waited...and waited. When the nice man with a white coat and a turban finaly popped round my curtain he got 6 medical staff to log-roll me onto my side so he could run his finger down my spine while I said "no" for no pain or "YES" if it hurt. This log-rolling thing was to be standard practice during the next few days...but more about that later.

As Doc pushed my spine, I was supprised at how many "No's" were coming out of my mouth. All down the middle of my back it was "No, No, No". I was waiting for a yes because I didn't want him to finnish and say 'Well, your not in and pain at all then are you.' And then he pushed my lower neck. "YES".

Then Doc went down the line of, 'Does it hurt more: 1...or...2' [pressing my neck in very specific places.] "1."

'Now, 1...or...2'

"2." - It was just like being at the opticians. Well, ok not really.

Apparently the fact that I felt the pain in a specific place wasnt really a good sign so I was to wait for my X-Ray (one of several).

About an hour later I was wheeled into X-Ray where they took two shots from different angles and then wheeled back to my spot in A&E.



More waiting.



Doc comes and tells me he isn't 100% happy with the X-Ray but it doesn't show very much so ima need another X-Ray. Ok Doc.



More waiting.



Another X-ray. Doc comes and tells me he's going to look at the latest X-Ray with a bunch of specialists now. Oooh, specialists, eh? This sounds like it could be more than bruising :/



More waiting.



Doc comes back. 'We arn't happy with your X-Rays so you are goings to have to have a CT Scan. Just wait here until they are ready for you' ... yeh sure, I'm hardly going to run for it am I.



More waiting, [you're probably getting board of this 'more waiting' business - sorry.]



So they wheeled me to the CT Scanner room and log-rolled me onto another bed thing. 'Whom, whom, whom, whom, BEEP' [yeh, thats the CT Scanner...not me :P] It didnt take too long, I quite enjyed the change of scenery. The hospital ceiling was starting to bother me.

You guessed - more waiting.

And then the bad news.

'I'm sorry to tell you this Millie, but you have fractured your neck in two places.' He must be joking. 'You're going to have to stay here over night and you'll have an MRI scan tomorrow to give us a clearer picture so we can decide what course of action to take.'

"Stay overnight? Can I sit up?"... haha, stupid question. But thats all I wanted to do. And for the next three days, I was lying flat on my back, head taped to the fluorescent blocks, neck brace intact. I was so frustrated. The 1st night was the worst. I was put on a ward with a number of other patients - all old ladies. The ward was so understaffed at night that the lady opposite me never got attended to as she groaned and mumbbled through the night, the lady down the room from me muttered for hours and hours - I don't know what about. The person next to me - she didn't seem to be bothered by anything - how could she be when she was snoring like a BEAST. I have never heard anything like it in my life! So neadless to say I got no sleep that night. The most frustrating thing about it was that I couldn't SEE anyone. I couldn't get out of bed to see if I could help anyone. No one could help me.

The morphine was starting to make me feel sick. I rang my call bell because I was terrified of chucking up with my head strapped down - surley I would drown in my own sick.

No one came

I tried to let the feeling pass but it didn't, so I called out. No one came. My calls didn't even seem to concern the other ladies on the ward. I felt so isolated and any minute I was going to drown - surley. It all sounds so over the top. But this was definatly a low point during the whole hospital experience. AT LAST, the nurse came. "Calm cown, calm down...I only took a few minutes" Yeh, OK thats great but I'm about to be sick here. I wouldn't have minded nearly as much if I could have sat up. Fortunatly I didn't puke and I got about an hours sleep before my parents came back in the morning. I opened my eyes to see them

and chundered. (sorry to be blunt)

THIS was the low point. I don't want to describe it too much but there was only one way for the sick to go and that was down my face, round my neck, into the brace and into my hair. Yuck.

THANK GOD they moved me to another ward that night where the staff were much more aware of what was going on around them and they prescribed me anti-sickness drugs.

To move this swiftly along... I had my scan. More "Whom, whom, whom, BEEP"ing and they still couldnt decide what to do with me. Another night in the hospital...more bed pan usage, more hospital ceiling etc etc. And the next day brought with it news that I was getting transferrerd to B'ham Royal Orthopedic. Sweeeeet.

The Beginning

Soooo... First things first.
I'm Millie. I turned 17 this month...got a beautiful first car...booked a christmas holiday to Florida....Fell down the stairs and broke my neck 6 days ago.
Gutted, I know.




Out and about with a few friends before the accident. Thats me in the middle>>

I thought I'd give blogging a go. Its a first for me but I quite fancy it.

So on Tuesday the 24th of November everything was going perfectly standardly. I was getting ready for school and on my way down the large spiral staircase we have, the heel of my shoe got caught in the turn-ups in my trousers. So i grabbed the central pole to try and stop my self falling but ended up spinning outwards, clearing the stairs, and fell (somehow in a very horizontal position) about 8ft and landed pretty much flat on my back on the slate floor. Oops!

Mum heard the crash and came running down the stairs (NOT tripping like a fool) to my side where I was lying, thinking "Ahh man, ima get some brusing from this. Might have to have a little sit down and miss the morning off school."

Dad came next and told me to lie still. Non of us actually thought I had done any serious damage but sice I fell a pretty long way, Mum thought she should ring 999 just incase.

So 15 mins later, an ambulence car rolled up outside our house and the two paramedics came and did some standard checkes on me. They decided that, just to be on the safe side, they should put ridiculous orange blocks either side of my head and tape them to a neck brace (not a good look!) and call a proper ambulence to take me to Worcester Royal Hospital...just incase.

So a few mins later, I was on a hard board, in the ambulence, cannula jabbed into my hand on my way to hospital. All the time thinking "This is sooo over the top. I'm fiiiine!"


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I got to hospital a bit later...and (without trying to sound melodramatic) the nightmare started to unfold.