Posted by Estella on May 17, 2006, at 7:56:18
In reply to Re: little bit of pain... » Estella, posted by henrietta on May 16, 2006, at 20:26:28
i think i've talked about it a little, but not very much. yeah i count as technically disabled. i guess that means i could register with the disability office and things like that. don't know whether it means i would qualify for a disabled sticker on my car. i think that is based more on performance. i don't need one, so i wouldn't get one basically.
i... jumped off a highway bypass. it wasn't really such a great height... it was more falling on the hard tarmac.
about a month in hospital. two operations on my left leg / foot and three operations on my right leg / foot. i think i broke both the bones in both my legs... shattered a lot of the small bones in my feet. broke my right heel bone. have a plate and lots of screws in my left leg to hold that together. have a lot of screws in my right ankle to hold that together. they told me i would never be able to walk without crutches. but then they also said that that was compared to others with comperable injuries who tended to be older (and who possibly milked it a little in order to claim accident compensation so they didn't have to go back to tiling roofs or something like that).
wheelchair for four months. cast on my left leg and an external fixture on my right leg / ankle. my right foot has set on an angle (from the heel) and i have very restricted ankle movement in both legs. has to have both feet up in the air for ages otherwise they would swell up and ache. i didn't realise i was on so much morphene until they suggested the methodone program to wean me off of it.
then crutches. had to go back to hospital for one week to learn to use them. to motivate me to use them mostly. had the cast / ex fix removed. they made me use the crutches. you wouldn't believe the pain... mostly because my right heel isn't smooth anymore. it is lumpy and walking without shoes on hard surfaces is next to impossible (and always will be) because the pressure of my weight on the lumpy bits sends me through the roof. can do it a little now... but not much. takes a while to adjust to standing up in the mornings. to get the ankes working.
did lots of walking around in the physio pool. and maybe 4 or 6 months of physio. lots of physio when i was in the cast and ex fix too. to try and get my foot setting a bit straighter. but hard. painful because moving them kind of disturbed the bones. and the physio thought that it was okay for me to swing my ankle with the pin through it and no i don't think it was supposed to rotate with the pin. that hurt a lot.
have figured out how to get by. can tip off steps without a rail because i don't have the ankle flexability to step off them. can't crouch either because of ankle flexability.
most people don't notice. because i worked really hard to walk at ordinary walking pace. but people don't really notice when they are crossing roads and goofing around pushing people a bit or kicking a ball to them or stuff like that. my balance is pretty bad now. can't kick a ball and i can fall over if someone gives me a friendly shove and stuff like that. i tell people... but i guess they don't really get it. because i walk around okay.
i learned to tune out the pain signals and don't take anything for them now. have been going out dancing a bit (techno club stuff). i can't jump around like i used to but i can do a bit. i love that. it is worth doing it even though it means i can barely walk for three days. i take anti inflammatories and panadol after doing that though.
they said to think of it as degenerative arthritus. the bones aren't smooth at the joints anymore. they aren't covered by cartilage. just jagged bone on jagged bone and sometimes they haven't set right and they are weak anyway from having been broken / smashed. they say... it will only get worse as the bone rubs and rubs and so to think of it as degenerative arthritus. to plan for wheelchair later in life.
haven't SI'd since then...
and nobody would work with me after that...
i think that is one of the main things that put them off...
i was terminated. i remember being terminated. ringing crisis. going into hospital. in there for a couple days... time coming and going... missing a lot... conversation with p-doc. don't remember what happened... must have been discharged... must have left hospital... and went to find the nearest bridge. i don't really remember...
but yeah.
i guess it is since that that they were reluctant with hospitalisations.
i guess it is since then that they were reluctant to give me a clinician.
though the reluctance to give me a clinician started before that... terminated with 'i haven't been able to help you therefore nobody can'. despair. i thought things were never going to improve. and it was around exams... and i had a bitch of an exam day of discharge... and i couldn't study in hospital... wasn't in fit state (in my opinion which isn't worth a lot) lots of stuff there... lots of stuff...
poster:Estella
thread:644153
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20060331/msgs/645079.html