Well, so that was me home
after my big back operation, I must admit I was feeling very stiff and sore.
We had been given
exercises to do by the physios, one of whom had caused quite a bit of
consternation whilst I was in hospital. It was just as I had been transferred back
to the general orthopaedic ward when a young physio man (the OSO was muttering
that she had shirts older than him) and he said I had to be got out of bed to
do some exercises, the OSO protested saying that I hadn’t been out of bed at all
yet let alone doing exercises! The man was adamant that this had to happen; but
then came the best bit! He said I needed pain killers to do this and promptly gave
me morphine, great, soon I was floating along and laughing, and to be honest,
they could have done anything they wanted with me! So I was got out of bed and
did these silly exercises. I paid the price later though when the morphine had
worn off, boy did I hurt!
It turned out later
however that the OSO was right, and I shouldn’t have been got out of bed to do
the exercises at all, my back hadn’t healed enough for this to have been done
so the young physio lad got it in the neck from his boss so to speak, but I did
like the morphine!
Anyway, back at home we
did the exercises as we were supposed to and the OSO did her healing on me
which helped a lot. It was quite difficult adapting though to being totally
rigid from the top of my neck to the bottom of my spine, I couldn’t bend at
all. We had told that this was going to happen, but it was impossible to
imagine what it would be like. It meant it was a lot harder for the OSO to lift
me and get me out of bed and into my chair or bath or wherever else I needed to
go if you get my drift! Getting me dressed was also very interesting. As ever,
however, we managed and eventually my back got a lot less sore as it healed so
we were able to do more. In fact when we trudged back over to Manchester a
month or so later the docs were dead impressed with my progress and said they
said that I had made remarkable strides (as the OSO said, what a stupid turn of
phrase to use for someone who couldn’t walk!) and they didn’t think they had
have seen anyone heal as fast as me (we didn’t tell them that the OSO witch had
been healing me along the way, they all thought she was barking as it was
without adding any more fuel to their thoughts!).
So it was back to home and
school as normal, life had to be lived as they say. I think the worst down side
of having my back done though was that I couldn’t feed myself any more, which I
know will sound very odd, but because I had this great big rod down my back
stopping me from bending it meant I couldn’t lean forward at all, and because, by
now my arms were very weak I couldn’t get my hand up to my mouth, so I couldn’t
eat without help which, as you may imagine was a complete bore; but hey ho, if
the rod meant I could still keep on breathing it had to be worth while!