Well, a bit of a heartbreaking and eventful end to the weekend.

From the moment she got up this morning, she had been in pain. Nothing too unusual there, especially given that it was patch changeover time this morning. We figured it would get better, but sadly, it got worse, MUCH worse.

We had a snooze in the early afternoon, and kp got up out of bed really struggling to walk. As the afternoon wore on, she could no longer walk more than a couple of steps. Finally, she was midway across the hall, and she froze unable to move. The wheelchair was in the garage, so I had to resort to one of the study chairs (with wheels) to get her to her destination (front room). She was in so much pain, she couldn’t even get out of the wheely chair. An attempt to get out of the chair resulted in shrieks from kp. I could feel the pain her shrieks were so gutteral. At this point, she burst into tears.

kp:- What am I going to do ?

She didn’t mean “shall we go to hospital ?” or “should we have a cup of tea ?”. She meant “How could she go on in life like this ?”

I couldn’t help but cry with her. I was so upset, she was so upset – it was horrid.

dp :- We’ll have to go to A+E love.

Which we duly did. We set off at about 8pm. I got the wheelchair out of the garage, tore off the Easyjet tags (last time we used it) and brought it to her. She couldn’t stand on her own, and I had to resort to the old routine of getting her in and out of the chair. The turns that I had learnt back in 2005 were once again deployed, but this time, there were squeals of anguish pouring from Karen at every move I made on her. I have never seen her so racked with pain since the accident and that is saying something.

You can imagine how hard it must have been for her having to go from the wheelchair into the car, from the car to the wheelchair etc….

Once in the chair, she was ok. By ok, I mean she was still in pain, but not enough to warrant the screams that movements brought on.

We saw the triage nurse and were classified as “urgent”, which was good, it meant only waiting an hour !

When our ticket came up, we were took into an examination room, and we had to get kp onto a hospital bed. This bed didn’t go any lower that the setting it was on, which was higher than kp’s bum. How ridiculous !! I had to lift her onto the bed whilst she screamed in pain (heart breaking). The Doctor came and did loads of things that made her scream more. He put a venflon in and gave her 3mg Morphine (which is nowt), but it did help a little. It didn’t help make the moves painfree, but it did make it so that when she laid down she wasn’t in as much pain.

The Doctor was reluctant to give her any more than minimal amounts of Morphine because she is on 150ug worth of Fentanyl patches, and an overdose of opiates can cause the heart to stop apparently. A tricky balance for sure.

95% of the time was spent waiting around. Between our arrival and 3am here is what happened.

• Examination by Doctor
• Morphine
• X-Ray
• More Morphine (at Karen’s request)
• Loo Trip (nightmare)
• Fag Trip (nightmare)
• More morphine
• Arrival of Orthopod Doctor.

He told us that Karen had a fracture and did we know if it was a new fracture or an old fracture ?!?!?! The historical x-rays were at Sunderland, so they didn’t know the history. I described how I remember the old x-ray looking ie there was a bit of bone chipped off. He asked me to look at the x-ray and identify if what he was looking at was present on the old x-rays. I told him I thought it was there on the previous x-rays but couldn’t be sure. I told him there was a photo of the old x-rays on the blog. He went off to find it, but couldn’t find it because this website wasn’t a permitted website for the NHS and therefore couldn’t be browsed.

There were so many tears throughout the whole evening. She was dreading, absolutely DREADING, staying overnight in a hospital again. But, with the pain so bad, and being unable (without accompanying agony) to get in/out of the wheelchair, she knew deep down that it was the right thing to do.

At about 2.30am, she was told that she would be admitted and that the consultant would advise how best to proceed. She is Nil By Mouth, in case they have to operate in the morning.

I left her in a comfy position, eyes closed, absolutely knackered, so fingers crossed that they come up with a good action plan in the morning. Our worst fears are that they will say there is nothing they can do and pack her home with a bottle of Oramorph. I can’t see how they could as she can’t even stand, let alone walk or transfer from chair to bed.

It’s 9.15am. Just got off the phone from the hospital.  Karen has had a comfortable(ish) night. She is ok pain-wise as long as she doesn’t move. The consultant has done his rounds -  apparently he is sending her for an ultra-sound and an MRI scan today to work out what the best Plan of Action is. His options are to either …

1. Pin and plate the fracture or
2. Do a full hip replacement

We’ll know later today hopefully.

Am off to drop her bits and bobs in after I have had a shower etc…

Day 666 eh (yikes).

Well, kp had had a comfortable night’s sleep when I dropped off her bits and bobs at 10.30am. The pain was “uncomfortable” but if she moved, it was agony.

I spent 10 minutes with her, before I went on to work. Returning for visiting hours (2pm-3pm), she was asleep when I arrived. I think the previous night really took it out of her. Marie arrived shortly after I did. Here are Marie and Karen in full gas mode ….

She was due her scans in the afternoon. I left at 3.15pm and headed back to work, but at Chester-le-Street I had second thoughts. I was too tired (only had 3 hours sleep last night) and turned back. I went to bed after doing an hour’s work at home.

Up at 6.30pm, I went back in for evening visiting (7pm-8pm). I was greeted by this sight…..

What made me laugh even more is that when I got closer, she had chewing gum in her mouth. Bless !

Still knackered. She was asleep most of my visit, but I didn’t take it too personally. If anyone would like to visit kp, feel free during the visiting hours above. She’d love to see you. Or you can have a chat with her on her bedside phone (07040227581). It costs an arm and a leg per minute (be warned).

No scans at all. She is on a catheter now as the pain involved in getting on a bedpan is too much. Fingers crossed, they do scans tomorrow and we know when the op is going to be.