Bad backs and bedpans!

Since we got back from Prague at the beginning of October I've been flat on my back with excrutiating back pain. After a few home visits from the GP I was eventually ambulanced to the Wansbeck Hospital for x-rays. I was pain-killered, prodded and poked lots of times and eventually admitted. Because the sensation in my right leg was getting worse the bods at the Wansbeck decided I needed an MRI scan to try and find something on there. So I was transferred to Newcastle General Hospital two days later.

Yesterday, after 10 days in hospital, I got home at about 3.30pm (with a detour to see my parents) and about 20 mins later was visited by the Get Well Soon fairy bearing gifts...huge bunch of flowers, Thorntons choccies, a card and a balloon...in the shape of Jayne from the Attic. The Fairy that is, not the balloon! Just thought I'd better make that clear. After that it was on to the message boards to try and catch up with some posts and say lots of thank yous.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Think that's enough! To everyone who sent replies to Craig and Kathie's updates and a HUGE thank you to my darling hubby (who can't spell to save his life bless him) and my bestest sis Kathy (who has hidden the HUG smiley?) who kept you all updated, and probably bored sh...I mean witless.

I am not on any painkillers cos they don't work. But if you ever get the chance to have Oramorph - liquid morphine - take it cos it is absolutely gorgeous. The nurses kept giving me a drink of water to wash it down with but I kept telling them to just bring me the bottle and a straw! Nothing doing.

For those of you on Aion, that read my blog, that mentioned the dishy ambulance men, there were a couple, and one of them took me between the Wansbeck and the General so I got a double dose. Oh and the MRI bloke was a bit of alright too - he had gorgeous eyes. It's a shame the same can't be said of the woman who did my back xrays. What a miserable shrivelled up old bag she was! And she gave me no help whatsoever to move from the trolley to the xray bed, even though she could see I was in agony and could barely move.

Got off the track a bit there. Had to mop up the drool.

The nerve root injection seems to have done the trick for now, though to be honest the pain in my back is just back to the dull ache that it was before it went totally beserk at the beginning of October. They won't operate on my back because there needs to be more of the disc sticking out for them to grab hold of than there is at the moment. Wonder if jumping up and down will help. They don't like to operate unless it's totally necessary in case it makes it any worse. However, I have a couple of sticks to help me walk, which will soon be down to one cos my left shoulder is protesting very loudly at all this extra activity. Did I ever mention my frozen shoulders?

Anyway, the Newcastle General is still a dump. It was a dump when my kids were born, which is why they were born somewhere else, and it's still a dump. The food is revolting and god knows why they get you to fill in a menu card cos you never get what you order.

Most of the staff were ok, and I'm sure quite a few of them were quite pleased to see the back of me cos I can be a real grumpy mare when I'm woken up too early. I mean to say, it can't be humane to be expected to eat breakfast at 8am? It should be outlawed, we should petition Downing Street! And some stupid AMATEUR doctor, who was probably a consultant or something, woke me up on Sunday morning at 5.40 AM(!) to get some blood off me for a test. He had raging flu and was breathing all over me, but I soon scuppered his plans and he couldn't find a vein. Didn't take me long to get back to sleep either. Mind you, I did get a return visit later from a much nicer Doctor called Alister who DID find my veins eventually. Took him a few attempts, but he managed it the first time he tried it a few days previously, and managed it this time too, bless his little cotton socks. Mind you, you should see the state of my arms.

The nurse removed the canula that was giving me the saline solution yesterday and the catheter was removed at about 6.30am this morning. Oh boy, what a relief to pee!The physiotherapist saw me this morning and said I was a changed woman (she was one of the people I was grumpy with earlier in the week), gave me some sticks, practised on the stairs with me, but I keep forgetting which foot to put where and when and where the stick is supposed to be at the same time. It's going to be fun if I'm somewhere busy and I use stairs - which admittedly doesn't usually happen - and I cause a gridlock. Looking forward to that one.