Physical Recovery – The First Three Days …

I write this stuff as therapy. And it works for me. Somehow getting the thoughts out of my head and into written words reduces the frequency of unwanted flashbacks. I like to think, and from feedback I know that to some extent these accounts help people who have experienced similar. And for those who have not, I hope you never do, but encourage empathy maybe for many who suffer in silence. However, these experiences are what have made me the person I now am, for that I am strangely fond, even grateful for having been selected by fate to join this exclusive club.

… My first memory of consciousness after the surgery was of a physical tugging at the foot of the hospital bed. My foot and leg were being ‘pulled at’ by someone or something. Forcing my incredibly heavy eyelids open, I saw a dimly lit and out of focus scene with people standing at the foot of the bed. I recognised only one of the faces, that of my father, the others were nurses and/or doctors, and the tugging I had felt was the attaching of weights via wires and pulleys to a steel pin that had been driven through my ankle and was protruding perhaps a couple of inches each side. This I later discovered is called ‘bone traction‘, …

… the weights, some 9 pounds on one side and 5 pounds on the other were intended to keep the broken ends of the bones apart so as to encourage repair across the gap and hopefully, healing. That first conscious memory was just that, I suspect less than a minute and at approximately six pm. I had been out cold for the surgery since 12:45pm.

‘a kind and caring nurse would appear, only to give me the bad news that the last morphine shot was perhaps only 2 hours ago!’

The following three or four days are just random flashes of semi conscious memories. I was positioned very close to the nurses station or desk. A busy and noisy place to be on the ward but necessary I later learnt for close observation. The next few days of consciousness / unconsciousness, were punctuated by a cycle of morphine injections to the bum cheek or thigh, changing of blood transfusion bags and changing of blood soaked bed sheets.

Everything revolved around excruciating pain! Pain would wake me from my blissful sleep, pain that would get stronger as the last shot of morphine wore off. Having been awakened by the pain some assessment of my situation was possible. The bed was at a very steep incline, head low, feet high. There was a ‘cage’ over my legs, a metal frame which thankfully kept the sheets & blankets away from the wounds. A triangle shaped ‘handle’ hung from another attachment above my head. This was to be grabbed by hand(s) in order to pull myself up from lying flat. From another frame hung 2 bags of blood, one dripping constantly into the pipe plumbed into my left arm, the other on standby for when the first was empty to ensure a swift changeover. The nurses would fuss around this often and around other bottles suspended under the bed on the right which were draining blood and fluids from the wounds in my leg. 

Another ritual I remember because of its pain inflicting consequences was the changing of the sheet upon which I was lying. That severed artery despite being expertly stitched back together in the operating theatre was somewhat stubborn in its willingness to heal, consequently it leaked copious amounts of blood through the sixty stitches keeping the flesh together covering the broken bones, onto the bed sheets.

The nurses would visit every half hour or so and draw with a Biro pen around the blood stain, comparing it with the previous half hours pen mark. They’d then remove the sheet, painfully manoeuvring me and my shattered leg in the process and replace with a clean sheet. I believe they even weighed the blood soaked sheet in order to work out the blood loss! Whatever, it was not my favourite procedure.

So, awake with the morphine wearing off and the pain ramping up, any thoughts of sleep were just fantasy! I would try to be tough and put off the pressing of the buzzer to summon a nurse as long as possible, but inevitably I would give in and buzz. Not being aware of the time (or being in a state to even understand a clock) a kind and caring nurse would appear, only to give me the bad news that the last morphine shot was perhaps only 2 hours ago! They were permitted only every 4 hours! Gulp! Another 2 hours of steadily increasing pain and discomfort until any chance of temporary relief! And that was the 4 hourly cycle, 24 hours, night and day for the next few days. Awakened by pain, increasing in severity for another 2 hours, the morphine shot (painful in itself), 1/2 hour to take effect, blissful feeling of the pain receding then wonderful sleep, for perhaps 1-1/2 hours, then awakened by the pain again. On and on it went!

Once again this is one of those situations that only someone who’s experienced similar could relate to or understand. When in severe pain, five minutes feels like an hour. It was worse at night, less going on in the ward for distraction, all in all, a very lonely negative experience that you have to find a coping strategy for.

I was 18 years old and all previous routine normality in my life had gone, changed, in a split second. 

‘make sure your underpants are clean in case you have an accident‘

Thinking now about those first 3 or 4 days, I have no recollection of visitors, although I know I did have visitors, family, my girlfriend, not sure anybody else would have been allowed at that stage. I guess it was the morphine that has rendered those first days just a dim memory of the 4 hour pain-relief-sleep-pain cycle.

I do however quite clearly remember a delicate operation to remove the only item of clothing not cut off in the A&E department. There is a great Billy Connolly sketch (Link tba) in his stand up routine where he berates his mother for that old saying ‘make sure your underpants are clean in case you have an accident*’ he rants in his inimitable way how insignificant a pair of dirty pants might be when your body is smashed by some accident.

It’s a great sketch and reminds me of my own under pants and their eventual removal sometime in those first few days. I’d worn a pair of horrendous bright yellow Y-fronts with white piping. Because of the (a) the camber of the road and (b) the steep incline of my hospital bed, these had become saturated with blood, and they had to come off!

Now the Brook hospital was a teaching hospital with many student nurses, I was 18 going on 19 and many of those nurses were not a lot older than myself and two young nurses whom I got to know quite well and became friends with in the following months, were sent (possibly as a test for them, which happened a lot I learnt) to remove the offending pants in a as dignified way as possible, given that I could hardly move and in order to navigate the traction wires, pulleys and paraphernalia, the pants needed to be cut off. Now, in the state I was I couldn’t care less about my dignity and remember telling them politely so through gritted teeth and to get on with it whichever way was easiest for them, so out came the scissors and the jokey comments from me to ‘be careful with those’ and in a very slick and discrete manoeuvre off they came and on went what can only be described as a cross between a large cotton handkerchief and and those sexy bikini bottoms that tie up at the sides! The nurses had passed their test with flying colours and ticked another process off of their ‘skills sheet’ something I understood fully due to my own apprenticeship of which I was in the fourth of five years. The nurses had knowingly informed and advised me to get someone to modify a few pairs of my old pants, cutting through the seem of the right leg and stitching Velcro for easy removal / refitting. This was duly done by either my mother or girlfriend, I can’t remember which but they served me well in the months to come lying stuck in that bed, leg permanently attached by wires and via pulleys to those wretched traction weights, and the dreaded ‘Braun Frame’ (more of which later).

Thank you for reading

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Next: Physical Recovery – The move to the Long Stay Bay

*I will post a link to that Billy Connolly sketch when I find it.

Skeletal Traction

Originally Published on

12/19/14 12:04 PM