Friday, 9 August 2013

Blue Cast Day 8: Surround yourself with those you can trust.

Thursday's post (a bit late!):

So today I was pretty out of it for most of the day. I was in so much pain in A&E that they gave me morphine (which I never want to have again!) – the doctor was giving it to me and telling me to let him know when the pain stopped.
“Is it still hurting?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
Repeat a few times, then cue a warm tingly feeling – but not in a good warm tingly way – and me going “I don’t want anymore!”
Doctor: “That’s good because I’ve just finished the dose.”
After that I was out for the next hour or so. Apparently that was a good thing because my sister told me afterwards that the police had to take someone out of A&E for kicking off. At least I slept through that!
Due to the dose they’d given me I was in and out of it for much of the morning. When I finally managed to get up (no hair washing as I have to keep the area they glued dry for 5 days!) my sister arrived shortly after – she and her husband stayed in Chorley last night to make sure I was alright today. She took good care of me, making sure I was eating and drinking and not overdoing things.
This evening Elder Ballard (an Apostle) came and spoke to us for our devotional. To be honest I think I was still a bit out of it as I don’t remember all that he said. It was great to have an Apostle with us though, and several General Authorities of the Church too. Since I couldn’t be in the pageant tonight (doctor’s orders were to take it easy today L ) I sat and watched it for the first time. I was one aisle and one seat away from Elder Ballard and his wife which was pretty cool! The woman who sat next to me was the wife of the Prague mission President (I’m pretty sure that’s what she said at the end but like I said, I was a tad out of it!) and was lovely. She and her husband had come over especially for the Pageant and she really enjoyed it.
I loved having the opportunity to watch from the audience, but really missed being a part of it tonight. I’m reminding myself to continue counting my blessings though as everyone I saw today was so kind and caring; the medics who helped look after me yesterday, members of my district family, my dance partners, and my choir family from last week to name just a few. My roommates have been fab, I will really miss them when we all leave here! After the performance I headed outside as I needed fresh air, and Natalie (one of my sister’s sister-in-laws) spotted me and insisted on walking me back to my room. I was really grateful to her as I was feeling a little bit woozy by then and needed to lean on someone in order to feel safe walking back! Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be fully back to normal, though I have been offered the chance to return to the choir if I’m not up to being onstage yet.
As I was trying to think of something profound to title this post, the first that came to mind was 'Don't do drugs'! I had never had morphine before, and now that I have, I hope I never need it again. Did it relieve the pain I was in? Yes. But I found it scary to feel such a lack of control over my limbs and to feel so out of it. I learned that if you are in a position like that, it's important to have people around you that you can trust to help you, like my sister and friends who I feel very blessed to have had around me.

1 comment:

  1. you were lucky to get morphine in someways as when I broke my collar bone all I got were painkiller tablets which weren't much use at the time as I couldn't swallow pills.

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