Faith restored

Today I headed to the Alfred for complete x-rays and a review with my orthopaedic surgeon. After a few early hiccups and diversions, I’ve officially exited the holding pattern I’ve been in for the past six weeks. Thumbs up.

I’ll start with a run through of the day’s events, because no trip to to the Alfred is complete without a few good stories. My x-rays were scheduled for 9am, followed by the consultation at 9:45am. Justin, the patient transport driver, had me at the Alfred right on time thanks to pretty much running me all the way from the van to the front door. Apologies to any doctors we nearly took out on the way, pretty sure none of them were Dr Karl or equivalent so it’s fine.

I arrive at radiology and this time ensure I’ve been checked in at the desk (lesson learned). I asked the nurse to confirm what x-rays are being done and she tells me it’s a full pelvis/lumbar and wrist. I asked if they were doing my leg since it hadn’t been scanned since the surgery. I was quickly shut down, being told that’s all trauma has requested. I get called up and we’re heading down the hall when the radiographer realises I have a cast. Long story short, cast needed to come off. Luckily it was Oscar, the same doctor who put it on 6 weeks earlier, so I was in good hands. Cast off, back to the radiology waiting room, then to the x-ray room. I’m a bit more mobile now than I was last visit so I was able to transfer to the bed without much drama. Scans done from every angle imaginable and I’m back to the waiting room ready for my consult. But wait, I’m told they didn’t get the wrist scan right, so back to radiology we go. More scans, back to waiting room.

I was directed into a consulting suite and met with a medical student who was sitting in on my surgeon’s appointments in the morning. I’ve been exposed to quite a few students during my stay at the Epworth and the vast majority are great, to the extent that you’d struggle to distinguish them from actual staff aside from their baby faces. Today’s student missed the memo on reading patient files and kicked off the conversation with “I haven’t read your files or anything {insert awkward giggle} - what happened to you?” If I hadn’t known I was seeing the surgeon I might’ve referred you back to my response to earlier Alfred visits but it was ok, surgeon was en route, deep breaths.

I don’t remember everyone who came into the ward at the Alfred in February but I definitely remember my orthopaedic surgeon, Hamish Curry. I was actually due to see him the week of my accident to treat my right ankle that was still a bit dodgy from my accident 2 years earlier. When I met him after the surgery (and full of morphine), I was pretty quick to laugh (not surprising) and mention I probably wouldn’t be making the appointment. I think I hit the trauma jackpot in getting him as my surgeon - despite 2 forgettable experiences as an outpatient over the past few months, today’s visit completely restored my faith in the treatment I’ve been provided.

{Of course within about 5 mins he realised they hadn’t scanned my left leg, so there was a brief break in the appointment for me to go back to radiology for the third time and wait for a bit of time before getting the scan done}

This appointment is probably the best thing that’s happened in a while and I can’t explain how much I appreciated being spoken to like a real person about the healing progress, the short/medium term implications and my roadmap for the next few months.

1. Leg is healing well - the lower fracture is dead straight and the upper fracture has a bit of unevenness where the bone ends meet but generally it looks good. If we ignore the fracture site, my knee lines up with my ankle and that’s all that matters. The lump above the spot where I had the open fracture is likely going to stick around for a while, he likened it to a sausage skin (yes, we laughed) where the muscle sits and because it’s been pierced, there’s going to be some bulge. They couldn’t stitch it down because it’d get too tight so there’s going to be a permanent lump there. Just need to keep going with the weight bearing progress, that I can do.
2. Wrist is also healing well - the scaphoid is hard to see in the x-ray but the 8 odd angles they took meant he could see the bone has bonded. The cast has gone for good and I just need to focus my physio on rebuilding the strength.
3. Pelvis & Back - He took me through all the x-rays and CTs from the first day and helped me understand it better. I hadn’t fully grasped my back injury - it’s a compression fracture and a transverse process fracture on the L5 - basically it’s a bit squished and the bony bit off the side of the vertebra has torn off. The issue isn’t the fracture itself because the body will just repair with scar tissue, it’s more the pressure on the L4/L5 disc, muscles and ligaments. Hamish was able to recreate the type of action that would have caused it, likely a sharp twist backwards. In my mind, I guess it’s where I was struck by the bumper. It might sound weird but it’s incredibly comforting to gain a better understand of the body mechanics behind the injury, it sounds cliche but it provides a lot of closure for all the hours I’ve spent rebuilding the crash in my mind and wondering how it all unfolded. He was completely honest and said I’m likely up for ongoing back pain but I guess we’ll just cross that bridge when we get to it. I also took a better look at my pelvis scans and now understand that a) I’m not a radiologist and b) it took a bit of a hit. I’m really fortunate that the fracture wasn’t displaced. I wasn’t surprised to hear that I need to wait another 3 weeks to take it to 12 weeks in total before I can start putting weight on my right leg. 28th April has already been marked in the calendar.
4. My sternum is now a non-issue because they generally just heal over time.

Of all the news I received today, I think the next bit is without doubt the best. Talking about the next steps, Hamish said I’m fine to become a private patient with him once I get the all clear on my hip. He’s going to refer me to a specialist hip surgeon to get the green light that my pelvis looks good, which I expect will happen sometime in the next 3 months. After that, I’ll be back to review the leg progress again and take things from there. Discussions about removing the rod in my leg can start after 12 months, which I’m actually quite glad about because I’m pretty sure there’s no way I could even think about surgery again in the next 6-8 months…

There are no words to explain how good it feels to have one incredibly competent person take control of ALL my fractures and give me the confidence that it’s all heading in the right direction. I tried to express how much gratitude I have for his help putting me back together and thankfully as a cyclist himself, he totally understands everything and I feel really fortunate to have him as my doctor.

So physically I’m healing well, phew.

Other things have been going on here at the Epworth and beyond over the past few weeks…

Bianca and James’ wedding - I made it there and back thanks to a very good taxi driver (even though I swore I was never going to go in a maxi taxi in my chair) and the kindness of Jess and Frank, fellow cyclists. It was so, so nice to see B and James looking so happy, there’s something about seeing other people’s excitement that means you can’t help but feel so happy for them :) They’ve been so good to me over the past few years so it was such a pleasure to be there.

Nurses, being great as usual - Sheridan’s new puppy arrived…

…and we had a morning tea to raise money for their upcoming Oxfam walk.

Arrivals and departures - my neighbour Shane who had a bad fall from ~20m left last Friday, plus a handful of others. We had a farewell Messina cake for Shane - so good.

It’s sad to see people go because they’ve shared the journey with you and they’re some of the few people who really understand what’s going on. Then there are plenty of new faces here with others going home. That means more unbelievable stories of the car/motorbike accidents. There’s a couple here who both are now amputees when their motorbike hit another car. Then there’s a lady who was a passenger in a nasty crash has broken pretty much every limb and bone within the limb (like femur AND tibia broken, ugh) and her “good” leg is the one with a broken ankle. It’s also strange to see people starting from square one, I don’t think I’ll ever forget feeling so vulnerable. A small handful of us are still here from earlier in the year so there’s still some support amongst ourselves.

Online shopping - I’ve been here from the height of summer through to mid-autumn and it’ll be pretty chilly soon. Stocking up on more essentials. I don’t know how i’m going to go back to wearing real clothes. Might not even happen. Single life?

And finally, student nurses. We all had to learn at some point. Repeat.

Hopefully the next update I have will be that I’m standing on crutches and starting to hobble around…