Walking again.

The idea of the external fixation is that you can weight-bare through it straight away. In theory, after my operation, I would've got up and walked away. But life isn't that easy.
Physiotherapy started the day after my operation. I was given a walking frame and had to make my way from the bed to the chair, an easy enough task, so you'd think.

I was in agony lowering my leg from the bed to the floor, the blood rushing to my leg also brought feeling. I was with two physios, each helping me from the bed to the frame. I managed to stand and hobble over to the chair by the side of my bed. Something that would've taken a normal person seconds, took me fifteen minutes. Evey time I bent my leg, a hot pain would rush to my knee and when I tried to walk, my leg wouldn't respond in the way I wanted it to. There were moments where I thought my leg was out in front of my body but in actual fact it was parallel.

I got through my physio with thanks to only my mother. Without her, I would still be stuck in hospital struggling to get up from my bed. My mother devised a system where I would get up and down from my chair five times to earn a gold star. We spent hours in one night on getting just one star, to ease my leg into be bent and straightened over and over. By the time the physiotherapist came the next morning, I could get up with ease.

The next step of my recovery was walking with the walking frame. Like I mentioned above, it was difficult to get my leg to respond and when I wanted to move my foot forward, it would hang limply, not responding. Again all night, we practised walking with the frame, ever so slightly. I'll admit, I cried a lot through my physiotherapy. It hurt every time I moved and to put pressure on the bones was excruciating. When the physio returned the next day, I could walk a short distance with my frame. I was happy and was told I could go home if I progressed to the crutches.

Little did I know that crutches would be my downfall. I hated my crutches right from the start. They didn't support me in the way the walking frame did and the tile floors, to me, seemed slippery. I practised slightly with the crutches but less support from them meant more stress on my leg. Soon, I had blisters on my hands, my arms ached and I cried in pain every time I stood up. My medication was doubled to deal with the pain but done little to help me walk.

At this point, it was two days until Christmas and I desperately wanted to go home. I had to prove to the physiotherapist that I could walk. I grabbed my crutches and screamed inside every step I took but I walked the required length. This was good news, I could manage the length of an average room. The bad news however, there was another task I had to complete before I was allowed home; stairs.

I still don't know how I managed those steps but my determination to go home for Christmas was greater than my pain. I was dismissed from hospital on Christmas eve. 

Peace with the Cage

As the time went on, I got brave. I started looking at my cage more and more. I didn't like it but I was going to have to live with it. I couldn't quite look at the pins going into my leg, but I could look at them. My friend knitted me a little Santa and we thought it'd be funny to attach him to my cage to make it look more festive.

The worst time to fall

On the 8th of December, I was admitted to hospital. I didn't leave until the 24th.
The date I fell was one of the busiest A&E days the hospital had seen in ten years. I was not a priority. Whilst I had decided I wanted the external fixation, I was not operated on until the 18th December. In those ten days I'd had around twenty injections, two blood tests and an IV line; not bad for someone who is terrified of needles.