1. After mentioning before about how I was trying to speak in French but struggling, I also remembered my ski buddy trying to speak to the radiographer in French and failing miserably. She was trying to say to him that it should have been her laying in the bed injured as she had done all the falling over on the trip....the one and only time I fell over and look what I managed to do! I've been told that not falling over enough was the cause of my problems - apparently I didn't have enough practice at it.
2. I got texts from friends which meant the world to me as I was laying in bed in Briancon after Sarah had left. It's easy to be strong and keep it together in front of other people but the moment you're left to your own devices (and left to your own thoughts) it becomes more of a battle. They gave me something to think about other than the pain, and the impending operation. I also got a little video message from my folks, brother and niece which I watched many times over - home seems a long way away when you're laying in a hospital bed abroad! My phone bill was astronomical but it was worth every penny.
3. In order to be able to fly home, I had to get a 'Permit to Fly' from the hospital, without which the insurance company wouldn't book us on the flights. The night before we were due to fly home, the insurance company rang me and asked me to fax a copy to them......Montgenevre is a very small resort, I had no idea if there was a fax machine! There's only one place in resort with WIFI and that was a pub which I was not able to walk to - I ended up having to take a photo of the permit and using data roaming to send the photo via email which cost a small fortune.4. When I was in the recovery room after the operation in France, there was a poster up in there the likes of which you'd normally see in a classroom. It was detailing nerves, tendons and veins running around arms and shoulders, I think. I do remember thinking that if you're about to perform an operation on someone you really ought to know all that stuff already and not be referring to an educational poster! And if it was there for the benefit of us patients to give us something to look at, might I suggest an alternative subject matter?!?! A nice scenic view perhaps?
5. Anaesthetics don't sit well with me, and whilst laying in recovery looking at the aforementioned poster I was sick and it was bright green. I was saying 'je suis desole' to the nurses. I'm sure you didn't really want to know that but there you go!!
6. Before the operation, when they were numbing my arm, I got to see it and what it looked like broken and it was not good! Then after the local anaesthetic had numbed my arm, they asked me to slide myself across from the bed I was in, onto a trolley to go into theatre. Thing was they wanted me to move to my right...with a deadweight for a right arm. So I had to hold my broken right arm with my left arm and try and shuffle myself across all the while thinking that it must surely not be good for a broken joint to move about this much. I was wheeled into theatre, only to have to move myself off the trolley onto the operating table which as you can guess, was on my right! Then I remember the surgeon (Max) talking to me, but I wasn't listening to him as I could feel my arm being doused with iodine. I could feel my arm and they were about to cut it open! Max must have seen the panic on my face as he said to me 'You can feel it?' to which I replied yes. He just shrugged his shoulders and said 'It's OK' in that proper Gallic way. The next thing I remember is waking up. So he was right I guess, it was OK!
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