The Accident - Part 2

So there we were, operation completed and two days of starvation - although basically because I just could not eat. It was Friday and I began to realise that I was in a real world. In the meanwhile the farmer's wife with the broken foot had gone home to be replaced by a another broken foot. A lady got trapped with her motor cycle in a pot hole in the road and did a somersault through the air. She was also delivered by ambulance. Luckily (or unluckily) it was only her foot that had a few broken bones, but at least there was someone to talk to.

I even began eating. Actually I was quite sly I suppose, but did not realise it at the time. Being diabetic I was on a diabetic diet in the hospital. Our hospital food is not bad. You can choose what you want and lunch is usually a soup, followed by meat and the trimmings and then a desert. Being a diabetic, you also get supplied with inbetween things. I don't know why, but I was getting plates of fruit (pineapple, grapes and oranges) and also milk shakes - really good. To put you in the picture a Swiss hospital is comparable with a five star hotel. It even costs more. For my insurance (all is private is Switzerland) I pay 314 swiss francs a month and the hospital is included - normal of course. I could never be able to afford private (a single room) or half private (two in a room), but four-five people in a room is not so much and let's face it - I just have to have an audience.

Anyow I started getting doctors visits. They were mostly Germans, not Swiss, but my Mr. Swiss said they don't have enough Swiss doctors at the moment. Although there were a few attractive examples amongst the doctors. No, George Clooney was not there. I had a visit from a physio therapeut, but half an hour after she gave me her advice I had to go to the arm fixing center and they told me everything was different. Now that was an interesting department. One young doctor and two assistants. One assistant constructed a splint for my arm, just for nights to keep it still, which one night later I was told not to use anymore. The idea was to get my arm moving and not to have it fixed. I had quite some fun with those blokes in that department and with the use of a mirror they showed me the sewing work that the surgeon had done on my arm. Looked quite neat and colourful.

After my two days out of this world I can tell you I was not feeling very clean and washes at the sink are not my sort of thing. As you can imagine my hair was suffering as well. Then came the day when I said to the sister I want a shower. No problem, we had one in the room, very modern and the sister accompanied me. I really felt like Cleopatra. Don't do it yourself, just take it easy. Afterwards I felt like a new person. I even dared to go with my other half for a drink in the outside restaurant in the afternoon. It was then my daily routine with a shower in the morning.

One night was quite exciting. It was 2 in the morning and I had to go to the toilet. They let me wander around on my own now and again. When I got up I noticed lots of lights flashing outside. I thought it was full moon or a storm or something. Whilst I was in the toilet I heard a terrific loud noise. Eventually I was on my way back to bed and what did I see? A helicopter was landing outside - our window overlooked the landing place. So what do I do in such circumstances - naturally I get my camera ready and take a photo. We were all awake by then. Here is the result. Not a very good photo, but it is difficult to get it at the right angle. Generally most, if not all, hospitals in Switzerland have helicopter landing places. Either they deliver people from motorway accidents, or mountain accidents. I watched how the personal left the helicopter and wheeled the unfortunate away into the hospital on his stretcher - most interesting.

Sleeping is not so easy in a hospital, especially when you have to sleep on your back. My room colleagues had the same problem. As it was quite warm we were sleeping with the window open. Although in a country area there was a lot of noise sometimes late in the evening. Music and loud voices from men. I asked the sister, and she told me that next door to the hospital was the remand prison and the men did tend to make a lot of noise sometimes. I remember reading that in our local newspaper. There had been complaints. They often get their women standing outside in the evening and messages are shouted back and forth in foreign languages according to who is locked up. Here is a photo of the prison taken from our ward window. The saga continues later - after all it is not every day that you go to hospital.

The prison is the building at the front on the left.

The Accident - Part 1

Notfall = Emergency
Haupteingang = Main Entrance

Yes, well there are sometimes things in life that are not predictable. A quiet Whitsun Monday after lunch. No. 2 son had packed his bags after a week-end holiday at home from his job in Brussels, Belgium. It was 1 o'clock in the afternoon, after lunch, and his father was going to bring him to the station at 2. It was then that the mother (me) made the fatal mistake of standing up on the porch and falling over, taking a chair with her and hitting her arm quite heavily on the concrete floor. Wanting to get up again, with a painful arm, she realised that the arm was no longer sort of attached to the body but hanging loosely, complete with swelling on the top half. Struggling to the living room and plompsing down in front of a startled husband and son, her words were "Call the ambulance, I have broken my arm". My son went into action and called, I was ready to faint and everything took its course. Within 5-10 minutes the ambulance arrived. My son stood outside and pointed the way and I was asked how much the pain was on a scale from 1-10. I said if the scale went higher? It didn't, so I was put into a dreamy state and transported on the stretcher (it was on wheels) out into the ambulance. My son said he would stay a day longer with us, and I said does not come into the question. I felt the warm sunshine on my face before I was in the ambulance, my son accompanying me up to that point and then we drove off. My first ride in an ambulance, and apparently some neighbours were watching and the blue light was showing, although no horn. It was not an emergency. At home I left two shocked men behind me, but my husband took my son to the station and drove to the hospital afterwards to find me in the emergency reception bit.

The first thing they did was an x-ray and we were shown the result. It was not the first time I had broken my left arm, but last time it was the bottom half. This time the top half. A very interesting picture, a so-called comminuted fracture. The bone was broken and the basis had split into a few pieces. It was sort of bandaged up and I was transported to the ward on my bed. I was not the only emergency on that day, there were a few, so I was told most probably the operation would be the next day. This was now to be the view from my window for the next week.

Our town hospital lays on the South edge of town, so it is where the countryside starts. Although a wonderful view, it did not impress me so much on the first day, especially as every time I moved my arm there seemed to be two unattached bones moving inside. At least the feeling had come back to my hand in the hospital.

I found myself in the accident ward. We were at that time just three people. A farmers wife with a broken foot and an elderly lady (over 90) with broken hip and arm. I must have been able to sleep through the night a little bit and the next morning I was told the operation time was not yet certain. At 10 'o clock in the morning the nurse said they were ready and I was sent to the operation theater. I was in never-never land for at least three hours - a complicated operation - and eventually returned to the ward at 6 in the evening, feeling very bad. Anaesthetic does not agree with me and it was at least two days until I could eat real solid food again and keep it.

So this was how it begun. I can type, but a bit difficult at the moment as my left hand is in some sort of nylon brace. Here is a photo of our local hospital. I was on about floor 8 in the tower.

MULTIPLY Poetry Posse Week 34 - Limerick

Based on my experience in hospital last week

An old lady turned a cartwheel
broke her arm, which did not want to heal
The ambulance came
because she was lame
Her bones are now screwed with some steel

Poetry Posse