Caught a bad dose of ‘flu in early March – Flu A, the real deal, not the bad cold we like to term ‘flu. I spent Thursday and Friday in bed feeling sorry for myself – not just on account of the ague but also because of a few events I would miss. I had particularly wanted to see the Brian Bourke and Michael Kane joint opening at Taylor Galleries and on Friday had booked tickets for Thomas Berhhardt’s The President at the Gate. But not a chance, I was anchored to the bed and even off my food, a sure sign I’m sick.
On Friday evening I got up to use the bathroom, weak and groggy. Having had an erratic piss, I decided to change my pyjama bottoms while standing up. Don’t try this at home children. While removing them I lost my balance and almost in slow motion watched myself crash into the bathroom wall and land on my arse on the floor. I had the fleeting thought that I’ve done some damage here, before I blacked out. I don’t know how long I was under – seconds or minutes, but I came too, freezing cold and with an awareness that I shouldn’t (and couldn’t) move. My phone was luckily just a painful slither away, so I reached it and dialled 999. The ambulance phone operator took my details and asked me to ensure any dogs were locked away – bitter experience I expect. Luckily our German student was at home and she corralled our beasts and opened the door to my rescuers. They had taken about 30 minutes to arrive. They raised me off the floor and asked could I stand unattended – I tried it and I promptly blacked out again. Purely from the pain I suppose but the cautious crew reckoned it was proof that my initial collapse was caused by a cardiac event rather than a simple fall and promptly called in another ambulance for support. The four of them got me on a stretcher and off we roared towards St. Vincent’s. The driver didn’t seem to know about those challenging speed bumps on the Monkstown Road so it was no easy ride – every movement was agony.
A & E was busy but I seemed to skip all queues and got seen by a doctor and X-rayed within 20 minutes. I suspect that the heart attack theory had spread. There was no languishing in the corridor for me either, despite evidence of many others not so lucky. I was brought straight into a cubicle and seen by a number of concerned doctors and nurses and had various tests including a blood test. I was joined a little later by my bemused wife and daughter, just emerged from the Gate where my spare ticket hadn’t gone to waste.
Information about the damage suffered droppeth slow. First, I was told “no bones broken”. Then it was “a small bone broken, near the pelvis”. Finally, and conclusively, it became “a compressed fracture of the L2 vertebrae.” Not great. And there was lingering doubt about whether my fall or blackout came first – despite my insistence on it being the former. So I’m taken off to a private room in the Acute Medical Unit – the private room, I assume, being due to my lingering and infectious ‘flu. Coming through the A & E system generally means you remain public property.
Then follows three days of pure hell. The slightest move caused a shooting pain in my back and there was no question of sleep. They started me on paracetamol but soon hit the harder stuff – mainly due to my increasingly strident pleas. I assured them that if my dentist in Ballybrack inflicted even 1% of the pain I was feeling he’d give up his profession, yet a modern hospital could not sort me out. Finally I get something very aptly called Nortriptyline which provided the most florid, vivid and realistic hallucinations since my tripping days in London in the late Sixties. While wide awake, I recall reaching out to try and touch objects that were not there. It also induced apocalyptic nightmares from which I was very glad to awaken. I’d say this drug distracted me from the pain rather than relieved it. The addition of codeine via Solpadol eventually provided the best relief, if only moderating the pain.
Although I wasn’t at all hungry, the food I was given was beyond vile, and overtly unhealthy. No fruit, soggy vegetables, veiny meat in problematic gravy, a fillet of cod, stiff with age etc. When I asked for yoghurt I was given one with added caramel. After four days of suffering and starvation I was transferred from my single room into a ward that seemed to be full of dying women. There was one exception, a middle-aged woman sitting up and animatedly initiating conversations with anyone who passed. She seemed on a quest to find someone who knew someone that she knew. The rest of the women just lay there stoically, and two were completely immobile, dead or asleep. I saw no future for myself in this ante-room to the morgue so I checked myself out with the aid of a wheel-chair and accompanied by an arsenal of drugs.
Ten weeks later I’m back, gingerly, on my feet – with the occasional employment of crutches. I see a tasteful walking stick becoming a useful prop for a few months and have been investigating the possibilities. The pain has dulled but my consultant has informed me that it won't be going away anytime soon and will probably be a permanent feature.
Happy days.
Coda: My orthopaedic surgeon was from Cork and I discovered that his father was the consultant who treated me for a broken arm in Cork University Hospital 40 years ago – following a fall in a hotel bathroom.
