morphine on demand

Study for a Fractured Femur

Well, I’ve been off sick unable to carry out normal blogging duties for the past two weeks. At last I’m out of hospital, hobbling around on a pair of crutches, finally able to face the outside world carrying a schedule of physio to hopefully see me through to complete rehabilitation.

The whole sorry tale begins the day after NEON/Epiphany (a full report of which is to follow). Having enjoyed a rather late, heavy night unwinding listening to some very abrasive acid 12”s we’d headed to the DCA for breakfast and a beer. After another drink on Union Street I was still perfectly corpus mentis, and so we retired home happy. I felt something pull in my side, whether a muscle or a nerve or what I’m not quite sure, but I hung onto a wheelie bin for balance, trying to stay upright before falling ungraciously to the pavement. Once I went down I couldn’t put any weight at all on my right side. Completely incapacitated, I was helped along by my DJ colleague and a passing good Samaritan down the street and up two flights of stairs to the flat. Once inside, rendered immobile and in much pain I said I would be alright to sleep it off on the sofa. Sunday morning came and with it no respite, still unable to move, still very sore, the faintest twitch being accompanied by a sharp smart of my nerves. NHS 24 suggested an ambulance, and so it was two helpful men arrived with a wheelchair and some laughing gas, ready to escort me down the stairs.

The nitrous oxide took some of the edge off but I remained in a great deal of discomfort. In order to straighten my leg out I was given a generous dose of morphine, certainly the highlight of the weekend thus far, and in a fleeting state of euphoria I was ferried to Ninewells A&E department. I was x-rayed, the diagnosis a fractured femur, and an operation booked for first thing Monday morning. I slept a heavily medicated sleep and was taken to theatre, where I was fed more sleepy drugs in order to have my hip sliced open and a metal plate put in.

From there it was a bed on ward 18, luckily enough by a window with an excellent view, ready to begin a two-week program of pills, physio and much lying inert. Just after the operation I was hooked up to a drip with a little black button to press whenever I felt like medicating myself with a cheeky mini-hit of morphine; sadly access to this facility was only to last a couple of days. Two weeks duly passed, during which time I was immensely grateful for the support of the hospital staff and for the generosity shown by my friends and family who kept me busy with visits, texts, phone calls, books and food. I found the fortnight without any internet to be good for the soul, losing myself deep in a good book for days at a time without the distractions of checking Facebook updates, eBay watched items, Popbitch gossip and the like. Now I’m back in Wormit with my parents who will be putting all my worldly possessions into storage for a few weeks before I move to a new address in March. Tomorrow we’re all heading home to Leeds where I’ll be getting myself fit to negotiate the three flights of stairs leading up to my new place. Truly, if it ain’t one thing then it’s another.