Sooooo… on 17 September I got hit by a car while riding to work. Suffice to say fun times have not been the order of the day since.
I have a spiral fracture in my left humerus (which oddly enough isn’t funny at all). This is where the bone breaks up/down instead of across. They’re known for being extremely painful. I’m still sporting a huge bruise on my arm and there’s a lump which hasn’t gone away after four weeks. I also took a whole lot of skin off my left knee. I have three superb scars now but the bulk of it seems to have been something closer to a friction burn. My knee got insanely itchy after a few days and then the skin started to peel off. It’s still itchy now.
I spent four days in hospital because the pain was so bad I was being given morphine and some other heavy-duty opiate that they don’t seem to want to hand out scripts for.
From what I’ve been told, my broken arm is a bit unusual. It takes a considerable amount of force for this sort of fracture to occur and it normally happens in old people with osteoporosis. I’ve been left wondering if a clean break straight through the bone would’ve been better. But it is healing. It just feels like it’s taking forever.
It’s so frustrating. I haven’t been to work in a month. All I seem to do these days is sleep, drink loads of milk, read, watch tv shows and movies. I’m useless at anything else. I can barely take care of myself. Going out and doing things exhausts me, although that is getting better.
I feel guilty because I’m totally depended on Richard for pretty much everything. He’s doing everything at the moment while I sit on my arse. My poor work colleague has been on her own for three weeks now and I feel so bad about that. I hate the fact that I can only just dress myself. I can’t shower on my own – rather I can but I can’t dry myself off. I can’t cook anything. I can’t drive so Richard has to take me everywhere. I feel helpless and I hate it.
I’m still angry with the woman who hit me. I know it’s all her fault because she’s the one who ran a red light. But there’s a still a part of me that thinks I messed up. That I should’ve been able to avoid the accident. I’ve been riding long enough now to have developed the right sort of skills. I’m angry at myself for something I know consciously I couldn’t control. She hit me. She was the one who ran the red light. It’s all her fault but I still feel like I could’ve done something more than just plough straight into her like I did.
I remember the impact. I remember sliding across the bonnet. I don’t remember separating from my bike but I guess that because I was too caught up in landing on the road and being introduced to a whole new world of pain. I now have a new reference point for pain. I thought my back injury was the worst pain I had experienced in my life but this beats it. I’ve never passed out from pain – vomited, yes – but I got very floaty when the ambos had to splint my arm so they could get me off the road.
So yeah… my life for the last month has been all about my arm. I have a calendar full of medical appointments. I see my GP every week and discuss how my arm is going and when I should return to work.
Yesterday I finally had an appointment at the hospital with an osteo surgeon. After waiting over an hour to be seen, I spent about 10 minutes with him. He was surprised I hadn’t been seen by anyone since I was discharged from the hospital. I should’ve had at least one appointment and he was puzzled as to why I wasn’t seen by a doctor when I had x-rays done two weeks later. So there could’ve been something seriously wrong with my arm and I would’ve never known because the hospital totally dropped the ball on my out-patient treatment. But luckily it looks like my arm is healing just fine. I have another appointment in two weeks with a doctor and more x-rays which will hopefully show the fracture has healed. Then I can start rehab.
The other thing the doctor told me was that I’m looking at about three months for full recovery. Three months!!
Kinda explains why I’m still so angry with the woman who hit me. She caused the accident but I’m the one paying for it and will be for quite awhile to come.
