Bike crash 2023 part n̶o̶ ̶b̶l̶e̶e̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶d̶e̶a̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ oh all right then, #20...

(Not really a proper instalment, but previous stage... https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10159152766826691&id=608866690 )

[Fixup post compiled from a few FB posts and comments. Sorry for poor formatting. This was all last Friday.]

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I decided to come to the clinic early, just to check I found the right place, etc. I figured that they weren't going to see me 4 hours early or anything.

Next I'd go find some food, because I've been up since 4:30 AM and I've not eaten yet.

Step 0 was getting a map and finding where the nearest loo was. This place is big.

Well, I was wrong again.

They are seeing me early. They're amazed and a bit horrified that there has been no follow up, no stitches taken out, nothing since the operation. Apparently Nobles Hospital should have done this.

So, another Nobles Hospital #FAIL. I'm hungry. Dead on my feet, but also starving.

So, they cut the cast off, and peeled off the rubbery self-very-adhesive wound dressings. Free arm waxing!

 

I think it's straighter than it's been since 1988 TBH.

So, they were dissolving stitches that didn't really need to be removed, so Nurse Pearly only had to get a few lingering stragglers out.

I have 1 exciting new hole, and 2 *big* new scars. I think there are other holes I can't see (yet). But I can move it a bit and it doesn't hurt. Some new numb areas but that's to be expected given how I've been flensed. The nerves might regenerate in time. Might.

Snag: a couple of the surgical wounds haven't completely closed up yet. So I can't wash my arm.

I have 2 new surgical incisions, both somewhere around 20-30cm, and then there are 3 puncture wounds where bones were sticking out of my arm through the skin. So they told me. I can't see much of my arm currently, and anyway, it's swathed in dressings now.

On the X-rays, I count 5 plates and 28 screws... There needs to be 3 screws on both sides of each break to stabilise it, and each screw must go through both the inner and outer cortex of the bone. So that's 5 major breaks, I make it. Permanent, I should expect. Unless I break it again or it needs another bone graft or something, which isn't impossible.

Then, after a short walk to a local chip shop, back off to the airport again. Before I left Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, I went up to Ward 4 to thank Sister Amy and her staff for looking after me in April. I'm glad she was there -- she was an absolute star.

Meanwhile... I am fairly sure that this motorway didn't exist when I left Liverpool, more than 40 years ago.

(P.s. I looked it up. I was wrong. It was here. It opened when I was 5. So, possibly, after the Provens had left for Nigeria...)

(Previous instalment... https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10159153205256691&id=608866690)

And I am back at the airport again. I was just cracking open an Irn Bru Extra (see under "got up at 4:30 a.m.") when a guy came up to me and asked for me by name. "I was told to look for a tall guy with his arm in a sling."

I checked in already, this morning, and I have a boarding card... But check in doesn't even open for 20 minutes yet. I'm early *again.* This feels weird.

I'm also too full of chips from my brunch to take advantage of the nearest branch of Gregg's the Bakers to my home, which is the one here in the airport. My £6 chip supper brunch was only slightly more expensive than a chai and a chocolate brownie at the hospital coffee shop. Spring rolls not shown, on account of already having been eaten.