The most amazing talent I've ever watched!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NDL2fsTcik

This is truely amazing!

Freedom and Wheel chair adventures

15th June 2008

My brother moved out just before Christmas (he is 24)
My parents are now retired
I live away from home and just visit usually (about every 4 – 6 weeks).
Therefore me breaking myself is slightly inconvenient as I can’t work at all (I can’t take kiddies for a walk in the woods let alone take them caving, gorge walking or climbing).

My parents being retired also means that after 40 years of working, 20 something years of which they were bringing up me and my brother so they are now enjoying their freedom and often go away for short breaks. Plus retiring mid fifties makes sense when my grandpa retired at 65 and died at 68. Not really much freedom.

The problem is that mum and dad booked a week on holiday just before I got broken. I can’t go with them because they are going on a walking/exploring/cultural holiday and they have possibly chosen the least accessible location for anyone with a mobility disability.

My mum wanted to cancel but I told her to go. I’ve lived away from home for 4 years now including Uni. A week alone without the ability to walk is just another challenge. I also have the cat to keep me company.

In a spark of independence I went to the village in the wheelchair. This is a general up hill for about a mile maybe a bit more. I don’t know how people do it, maybe because they have to.

Anyway I had a few moments like;

• Going down kerbs and faceplanting into the road.
• Dropping all the stuff on my lap on the floor in a supermarket and being watched my increasingly impatient members of the public whilst I tried to pick everything up…nobody offered to help.

Of course people can be helpful and open doors for you, and pick things off shelves for you. But I also felt like I got talked to like I was special in some way, or maybe that's just me. Plus, EVERYBODY stares at you, it's creepy!!!

• I nearly broke the door on the pharmacy because the ramp was so steep going up it forwards nearly backflipped me and going up it backwards meant I couldn’t reach the door handle.

What is the point in having a wheelchair ramp, if when you get to the door you can’t open it any way?

• I also found that where I usually cross the road, where they’ve put the sloping kerb, because they’ve made the roadside pretty with hedges you can’t see the cars coming until you are mid way across the road. I never noticed this when I was walking. This must be a problem for kiddies too. Maybe town planners should spend a day in a wheelchair…
  

Fracture Clinic

Wed 11th June

I went to the fracture clinic on Wed 11th June and they cut off my cast which is good because showering was a right pain, trying to keep it dry. I put a bin bag over it but try and secure a bin bag to your leg when you are allergic to duck tape, selotape, plasters... The only thing im not allergic to is micropore and thats not waterproof and generally falls off when it gets wet. Also the cast was killing my hip. I never realised how heavy and cumbersome those things are.

My foot/ankle was also marginally swollen. *sarcasum* I should have a picture of my normal ankle in comparison really but it is not hard to see that my foot is swollen. I have the boniest ankles normally. And my toes look tiny in comparison. Bruising has started too.

I was marginally disapointed because I wanted a blue cast. Blue being my favourite colour and all. But then I got this robot foot which is awesome. Soo comfy too. I googled how much they cost... £105 !!! I wonder how many people fail to give them back (like crutches) then complain about the state of the NHS when the NHS must loose loads of money with the things they lend out!!!

My funky new robot boot. It is padded with foam and inflates with cushionning also.

Except i've broken the deflator thing already but the cartridge of a pen works just as well as it depresses the valve.

A & E - In plaster

Soo 5 hours after falling I actually got to A & E (8th June 2008).

I was very lucky in that even though it was sunday night there was still a fair few drunks, people who had had coughs for the past two weeks and a general busyness in A & E made up mostly of people who could probably have waited 12 hrs to see a doctor.

I think the fact I had injured myself 5 hrs ago and my ankle was quite impressively huge and I couldn't weight bare in the slightest also helped.

Still, I was entertained as where many people by a very very drunk girl who must have been about my age but appeared to have been abandonned by all her friends. She was stagering around and in one hand she had a hand bag and in the other a shoe. There was no sign anywhere of her other shoe, but she didn't seem to notice. She kept wandering up to the counter and trying to order a drink. When she found the phone which phones direct to the taxi rank she seemed very confused that she couldn't get though to her friend. Eventually she managed to work it out and hold the reciever long enough to order herself her cab. Then she staggered down the "corridor" between the chair and the wall (probably about 5metres wide) bouncing off both and falling over occasionally, the doors opened and she disapeared into the night.

So I was called through, and seen by a very nice nurse and doctor. Trying to explain how I did it was hard. It's not like the hospital near me specialises in outdoor sport injuries. Anyways I got sent to xray and hopped all the way there, I was on a being independent mission, despite the offer of a wheelchair.

There was a girl who had fallen off a slide in a childrens play area in a pub and possibly broken her arm. Her mum was not impressed to be giving up her drinking time sitting in A & E with a broken daughter. I was also shocked and saddened by the number of old grannies that I saw in wheelchairs who looked that they'd fallen down the stairs or taken a beating from someone. And the old men and women who seemed confused about where they where.

I got my xrays back and joked and talked with the docs and nurses and nosed at my xray. I was a bit sarcastic and giggly and they where really nice. There were drunk people on the ward and some crazy drunk women beconing me to go over and talk to her. The nurses were saying "nooo don't go" to me.

I was put in a half cast because me leg was huge and still swelling.

I partially dislocated my ankle and it nicely reduced/relocated itself.

I Hairline fractured my foot.

I Have severe soft tissue damage.

Broken the base of my (leg bone) although I also have an old fracture near the new one

The women who plastered it seemed like she would rather be anywhere than plastering my leg, and the conversation was a bit abrupt and went a bit like this.

"How did you do it?"

"I fell when I was climbing in North Wales"

"That was a bit stupid wasn't it!"

"Well I didn't intend to do it, I just slipped, it happens"

"Where you on a course?"

"No why?"

"Because if you where you could sue them for this claim some compensation for this injury!"

"I wouldn't do that and I was just climbing with a friend"

"Was he more qualified than you? You should try get some money out of it!!!"

"I'm more qualified, but he's more experienced, I just fell, like you could fall off a kerb"

"Ahh but if you fell off a kerb there could be something wrong with the kerb and you could sue the council.......blah blah blah blah...

And so it went on. This world is a crazy place. Everybody wants to sue somebody else. This viewpoint really shouldn't be forced on people when they've just been injured. I'm broken and i'll deal with it, I was my fault and nobody elses.

The only thing we agreed on was that if I had fallen off a kerb I might have actually got some pain relief other than some weak coedine and I doubt it would have taken 5 hrs to get to A & E.

However; I was drunk....I can't remember or

I tripped and fell off the kerb, really isn't much of a story is it. If your going to hurt yourself you have to go the whole way, gotta do it in style, pull a decent sickie, one that is acceptable in my line of work.

(Leg in plaster to knee)

Apart from that my experience with A & E was excellent. I got the nice doc (who was actually pretty hot) to email me my x-rays and I was in and out in an hour and a half. Pretty damn good if you ask me...and it's free.

Fractue clinic - Ankle photo

The consequences of falling

So we are sat on the side of a mountain and I can't walk. The beautiful view seemed to offer some analgesic quality but really not enough. (I took this photo in part just before we started climbing) My ankle by this time was absolutly huge and swelling fast. We got my shoe off quick to check that my toes wern't about to fall off, reasuringly they were still there and I put my shoe on again.

So, We were in walking time about 45 minutes to the nearest place you could call for help if you had fully working lower limbs. Even phoning meant that for a Mountain Rescue team to be gathered and me removed from the hill it could take a good 4 hours. 4 hours of waiting, in pain! So we decided to get ourselves off the hill.

I couldn't sit and do nothing. It is just not my mentality. I couldn't wait to be saved from the consequences of my own mistake. It was slow progress. We started with Mark taking a lot of my weight, spotting and supporting me down steep bits. Across the heather and gorse I crawled on hands and knees then for the rest of the 800m decent over rocks, loose scree, gorse and grass I shuffled on my bum keeping my right leg out of it, although I lost count of how many times I kicked myself and grimaced in pain.

The whole decent was made bareable by the very pretty view and lots of sarcasm.

"It's not that far" I exclaimed at the start of the decent..."I can see the car from here".

(This is the view we had when we started the decent. The car was parked by the trees on the road in the left of the photo).

I decided I would get a sherpa to carry my kayak in the Alps. It didn't dawn on me that by now my ankle was too fat to fit in a kayak.

We laughed about the situation...I've got a first aid kit...in my sack" I joked

"I can give people lots of drugs when I'm with the team" Mark retaliated ...but I don't have them here now".

"I've got a SAM splint....in my bedroom" I added.

It took over 2 hours to get down the steep screes and rocks, covering only 700m. Mark had gone to get the bags and kit from the bottom of the crag. I while coming down on my bum had a guy walked past me. I'd been thinking of Joe SImpson "Touching the Void" all the way down as I told myself just a little bit further. When the guy walked past saying that he had friend to meet and couldn't stop I felt for a moment a sudden wave of anger, like those people who are left to die on Everest as people walk past just wanting to get what they came for without a care for anyone else. Another guy coming down stopped and gave me a support bandage and water and pointed out the easier routes for 50m or so and carried my harness lower down the slope. Little things are very appreciated he was from London Mountaineering Club but i've no idea what his name was.

The last 100m was steep and grassy. I took my bag at this point. I had suddenly realised that Mark had been carrying two sacks of kit (waterproofs, warmkit, food etc) including a full rack of gear and two 50m ropes down and across a very steep slope. I couldn't stop myself on grass so my mate lobbed a rope round a rock, i tied the end round my waist and he slowly lowered me. It was just a safety rope incase I went into an out of control slide and couldn't stop myself. Might I add that this last slope was a sea of thistles, over knee high (almost shoulder high if your sitting down), and very painfull to sit on but it was more hassle to avoid them so I just ended up sitting on them and dealing with the extra pain.

The slope ended in a 5ft wall which dropped onto the A road. 5 foot is nothing if you can jump and land on both feet. It's a long way if you can't do that. Mark slowly lowered me over the edge and passing car drivers rubber necked it at the off sight of a someone being lowered onto the road. With one shoe on and one shoe off (my foot had swollen so much I couldn't keep it in the shoe but had taken it off just before Mark started to lower me on the rope to the road).

Mark scrambled down and went to get the car. I was really hot by the time I go to the road but in true irony the top of that 5 ft wall was covered in lavender and other herbs, so I might have been hot and sweaty...but I smelt gorgeous. Hehe.

In the car, my ankle/foot hurt so much that when Mark breaked and it touched the floor of the car it was soo incredibly painfull. I raided sack for painkillers and found paracetamol(500mg)/coedine(8mg) and took two of those and some ibuprofen it was not much but it was something.

I know you shouldn't but I was soo hungry and thirsty that we stopped on the way home and I hopped with Mark to a chippy to get food and pepsi. I knew I was injured but I didn't quite want to believe it. Plus I get grumpy when I'm hungry!

My mum had phoned when we were on the mountain as I was late back. I phoned and said Mark would drop me off at home and could my mum possibly give me a life to A & E because I might have hurt my ankle a little bit.

I gave my mum the same warning when I fell down a cliff in Turkey (that i might have hurt myself a little) and I had arrived home then with bandages on both arms from fingers to elbow, and on both legs, and on my waist. I'm sure I have a reason to be scared of falling...

A&E - Xray pic.

The problem with falling

I am a climber, or Maybe I should correct that and say that I am a faller.

I'm bored. That is why I am blogging. I am not a computer geek. I don't watch T.V or at least I didn't till this week, now that is all changing.

I fell from this ridge and pendulummed into a slab a rock hitting it right ankle first. It popped on impact and an explossion of pain ricocheted through my body. Suddenly a scream burst from knowhere and before I could think or stop myself I was bellowing "arghhhhhh" at the top of my lungs over and over. I looked at my ankle and foot, my right foot was pointing oddly to the left, as I grabbed it, it popped again, the pain lessened incredibly.

I stopped screaming as sudden as I started, it was about this time that I realised I was hanging on the end of the rope with a very significant amount of free space beneath me. By this point I had scared the hell out of my climbing buddy (Mark) who had seen me fall, heard me scream and now heard only silence! Thinking I had gone unconscious on the rope he had tied my rope off and escaped from the system in order to try get a better look to see if I was ok. It was at this point that I shouted "climbing". There was something that dawned on me whilst I was hanging there on the rope that said..."if you don't get yourself out of this mess now, you won't get out of it...you got yourself in this mess, you can get yourself out".

It also dawned on me that hanging in a harness leads to the same kind of problems of crush victims, so you can die on the rope. Unlikely in this situation because I was conscious but a motivational thought to get the hell out all the same.

(I fell from the blue cross to the red cross, breaking my ankle at the red cross, climbed out over the dotted route with a recked ankle).

So there I was, climbing. Climbing minus one leg. The right ankle didn't feel right, I had either dislocated it or fractured it, I wasn't sure, either way it wasn't right. I also refused to look at it. I didn't think it would help to see what I had done. The pain had been unreal, I knew it wasn't good. I never knew your body allowed you to feel that much pain, I thought you would just pass out. Looking back I don't know how I climbed. It wasn't easy. I hauled myself up with my arms, used my knee on occasion and balanced on my good foot. I was dizzy and starting to feel spaced out. My heart was also racing. But ask me to climb that route now (broken) and I couldn't. It was like survival instinct kicking in.

By the time I reached Mark I was crawling on hands and knees.

"Are your arms ok?" he asked...

"yeh" I replied. It hadn't occured to me that I could have broken an arm too.

"What have you done...?"

"Hurt my ankle" I muttered, thinking; understatement of the year.
I flopped down and stared at the sky waiting for my head to stop spinning. I felt nauseous.

Mark abseiled down and got the gear I had been unable to get out while I lay there cursing myself for falling off and for hurting myself. No kayaking for me in the Alps in 3 weeks! Mark told me to belay him but he actually abseiled down and prusicked back on a different bit of rope. Mark getting me to belay was an attempt to distract me from the pain and make sure I wasn't phasing out.

What would work say...? Would I lose my job? I thought

"Can you weight bare?"

"No" Merely putting my foot on the floor sent waves of nausea through my body. It didn't even feel like my foot existed. A bit like when you've sat in a funny possition and your leg goes "dead" and fails when you stand on it.

Slightly inconvenient I thought...it's 4pm on a hot and sunny afternoon in June. Our packs are 100m below us at the bottom of the crag. This wasn't going to be a long climb. We would have climbed and walk down back past our packs. The seriousness of the situation dawned on me....

Breaking an ankle falling off a kerb is soo much more simple, at least your only 20mins/ half an hour from help. We were sat on the side of a mountain...and I couldn't walk!

Part 2 -