What's it all about?

Yesterday was the day of my third operation this year.
Let me give you some background to my story!
Back in March I went on two skiing holidays, and on literally the last run of the second holiday, almost in view of the bottom of the piste (where the medical centre is, I was shortly to learn!) I caught an edge in the slush and fell. I felt my right wrist jar, but didn't think too much of it at first. That was until I took a look at it, and realised all was not well!
My ski buddy Sarah was on her way down and couldn't hear me shout, so I managed to flag down some passers-by, who luckily included a piste rescue man. He called for assistance on his radio and I heard him use the word 'fracture' (you need to say it with a strong French accent!) at which point my heart sank. We were due on a flight in a matter of hours and I knew how keen Sarah was to get home to her daughter.
So I had my first (and hopefully last) ride in a blood wagon, followed shortly by the grim news that not only was it indeed a fracture (still with that accent!), but a bad one that needed an operation to put in three pins. Before the journey home. Arse!!
I had managed to keep it together until I heard Sarah's voice, but hearing her made me cry with both relief (I knew she would do whatever she could to make sure I was ok, she's one of those people you would call in any crisis) and guilt. For at this point I knew we weren't getting home that day, and possibly not even the day after.

So followed a night in Briancon hospital, with my arm set in plaster under oxygen, followed by operation number one to 'fix' my broken wrist. I realised pretty early on that I just had to take each thing as it happened and deal with it one thing at a time. So when I was woken at 6.30am (having been woken several times in the night too), stripped by a nurse and instructed to shower using iodine, I just got on with it. I was regularly asked to rate my pain out of ten, and was usually somewhere around 6-7. At this point I rated it an 8 and was promptly given a "piques de morphine". I was looking forward to this having only been given paracetamol up to this point, however I can say that whilst the morphine took the pain away, it also made me feel pretty bad, like that stage of being drunk where everything spins and you need to hold on to the floor! Gutted!
The operation itself involved a block being used to numb my arm, injected via my shoulder into each nerve down my arm. I hope never to experience that again! I was also heavily sedated so remember nothing after they doused my arm with iodine, until I woke up and asked "Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé?"






Pins





View over Briancon from my bed






So there you have the background to my story. Operation number two was a non-eventful sedation and another arm block (using an injection and cuff this time, not the dreaded needle in the shoulder technique) and was simply to remove the pins 7 weeks after they were put in. I was chatting to the surgeon Mr Rahimtoola as he removed them, using literally a scalpel and some pliers!












At this point I thought I was all fixed, and full recovery would just involve physio. Unfortunately this has not been the case for me, as it transpired I had broken more than one bone and it was all misaligned and not healing properly. Following more x-rays and an MRI, it was determined that at least one more operation would be required, which brings us up to date!