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.