For Better, For Worse..........

Well, my last post seems a lifetime ago. In fact it has been about 5 long weeks. Some of you will know I had an accident in which I was run over by a driverless shopping-sized mobility scooter. My scooter actually. I was loading it into the car using the electric hoist in the back...........or rather, I would have done that if only I had remembered to turn off the scooter's ignition. As it was I caught the 'backwards' lever with my shoulder and the scooter took off and took me with it. At some point it must have run over my foot as I ended up with a fracture to the 2nd metatarsal on my right foot, most of my foot black and blue with bruising - even on the sole - and, jack-knifing heavily down onto the concrete drive, damaging my coccyx and consequent nerve damage.

At first I thought I was just shaken up and had a painful toe and I didn't go to hospital. With my bone conditions there are some things I have learnt to be more thankful for than concerned about. But it got worse and worse until, after 2 weeks, I couldn't stand, could hardly get out of bed, Keith had to wash me and even toilet me. As it was impossible to get in the car, my sis called an ambulance and away I went. Just as I thought, the doctor there, after x-raying my hips / back said all I could do was take pain killers and rest.

Then he noticed that my right leg seemed fatter than the left. To cut a long story short they found, after blood tests and an ultrasound scan, a DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) in my right leg. Treatment started there and then with an injection of heparin into my abdomen (nope, didn't hurt at all). The District Nurse came each day for a week to do these and I also had to take a variable daily dose of Warfarin orally. The Warfarin continues for 6 months and then, if an ultrasound shows that the clot has dispersed they stop the Warfarin and I have then to keep my eyes open for any recurrence. I don't know what happens if it hasn't dispersed. I didn't ask - well, would you?

Just think, if I had gone to hospital straight away when I first got injured they may not have noticed the DVT. God does, indeed, move in a mysterious way............

Poor Keith! He never signed up for this, though he swears he doesn't mind. He had to do so many things for me, even for instance after I had been to the loo (with me?). He had to wash me because I couldn't get in the shower, do the cooking and cleaning AND go to work. He was meeting himself coming back half the time and was terribly stressed. But God and his mysterious ways was at it again! Keith asked our GP to give him a sicknote so he could look after me but, as Keith wasn't actually sick, the doctor could not give him a sicknote. Next day the doc came to the house to see me and from there Things Happened! The Disabled Persons care team became involved. A carer comes in each morning to give me whatever help I need with washing and dressing and getting the day started. District Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Physios and rehab people - all have been to see me and are scheming to get me back to where I was before the accident. This is the NHS at its best, ladies and gentlemen, and I take my hat off to them.

There is another person - not called Keith - who doesn't work for the NHS. From the start of all this nonsense she has been with me whenever she could. She has cleaned the house, done the ironing, washed my hair or just chatted. She has tried to be here when Keith couldn't be, though her own hubby must have been shoved aside quite a bit. She has colluded with Keith in some of his less outrageous Heath Robinson-ish ideas for making my life easier. My sister. Our Gwyn. She is a star and I love her to bits. She's on a well-deserved holiday in Cyprus this week (hope she remembers the postcard) but, by gum, I miss her.

Well now, I think I have done quite well to sit here long enough to write this but the backside is protesting now so I'll try and get back again soon. Thanks for thinking about me and praying for me. I hope you still will - it ain't finished yet!