OK, so here we are with what actually happened when Wiebke broke her hip in a fall. Make sure that you have your seat belt on!
While I am currently about halfway through my half hip replacement operation recovery, the break has turned out to be the least of my concerns...
Things started going increasingly weird since the The Potteries Christmas Fair fundraiser in Kidsgrove on 16th November when I was suddenly unable to keep my sandwich tray horizontal, something that has never happened before. In the following days I was feeling - as expected - very exhausted but things got really and rather quickly strange all of a sudden over the following few days until it all came to a head when the left side of my body malfunctioned and I had actually several (harmless) falls trying to get to alert my hard of hearing hub who'd already gone to bed by Wednesday evening before my left leg gave under me and I fell straight onto my hip causing a clean break through the hip ball joint that is cradled at the top of the thigh bone.
Arriving in hospital in an ambulance in the middle of the night with a left hand with sausages attached - not fingers - that literally had no idea or any programming or contact with my brain whatsoever about what to do, including grasping a glass of water is quite frankly a much more disconcerting experience against which a broken hip bone kind of pales as soon as pain relief kicks in!
I had my hip op on the second day after my arrival in hospital (God bless nerve blocks) and kept myself busy with finger exercises to try and get my left hand working again whenever I wasn't woozed out. Useful way to pass time... but trying to think into body parts to try and make them work is tough. It took me over an hour one day just to work out how to get my left hand into my house coat sleeve the right way round. Actually, it was pretty scary. And the amount of dropped, toppled and dumped and bumped stuff I produced in those early days was considerable. I only trained grasping with my left hand with the water glass; there were simply too many spillages.
After plenty of checks and scans on the first day after my arrival it turns out that I have inoperable tumours in my brain that are not quite cancer yet as well as other lumps and bumps in various areas of my body that are not quite cancer yet. I will never be able to trust my body fully again. Fact of life; live with it, Wiebke. Piggies do it, so can you.
I'm not afraid of death or dying (after having about 40 piggies dying at home over the years and your mother-in-law passing away during your hospice shift sitting with her you do develop a bit of different perspective). My dad's own journey with terminal cancer - he was a fighter - has also given me insights and perceptions that I can draw back on.
Anyway, by that point I had already come to a similar conclusion that it must have been either a stroke (but the symptoms were not right since both my mother-in-law and my mother described their own experience with strokes to me) or it would have to be a growth of some sort that was scrambling my left side of the body, so the news was not a total shock for me. With cancer so prevalent now, it was definitely in race for me.
I've decided to call the new stealth installation in my head Super Mario, who keeps gunning at the other side of the body. It is a very useful concept: something that visualises it but that I can joke about, be angry about and with etc.
BUT it is something that is decidedly not ME and that I am not allowing it to define me and take over my life. It has a format that cannot threaten or overwhelm me even my weaker moments; I am still the stronger one.
Anyway, I reacted to my diagnosis in the same but somewhat less common way that my dad did when he got his own terminal cancer diagnosis aged just two years older than me: we both went full tilt forward. My sister explained to me that in some cases of cancer or terminal diagnosis the survival instinct kicks in so immediately and strongly that it takes totally over. I can concur: thought is not involved. You are just suddenly sitting in this super duper formula 1 car that is racing ahead on high octane adrenalin, fully focused on living. It is an exhilarating experience. And in my case obviously genetic.
Are you still with me? I am just getting warmed up here.
I am 61 years old and have found out the hard way that I am a long way further up on the autism scale than I ever thought I could be. Since I am of that generation where autism was something for just a few extremely difficult boys and I was simply the quiet, socially awkward girl happily stuck reading in a corner with a talent for saying exactly the wrong thing to exactly the wrong person at the wrong time, it's kind of hovered a little in recent years but not been exactly of any importance. I've had my private life down pat and autism frankly didn't feature in it at any point.
So hello, sensory overload! Not quite so nice to meet you. I've had a couple of meltdowns when it did get too much next to a dying woman having longer visiting time with her best friends and family on the same evening as I got my tumour diagnosis and I stumbled onto the biographical age link with my dad; he was only two years older than I am now. That was the worst night.
But otherwise extremely nice meeting my autistic side, actually. I experience it as my new super power because it is really helping me to cope with the whole experience. It makes me finally feel whole; like I have found my main 'on' switch at last. Not the least it explains my forum guides: why they are so clear and practical, why I can see things and connections that others can't etc. Being different has major advantages and it gives you a total freedom of thought and a wonderful wide playing field where you can make your own rules.
I am also able to channel a lot through my really strong bloody minded autism focus in terms of regaining control over my body and life again but also some of my harder feelings. What has happened has happened - but it is not OK. I need to live with it but I do not have to be necessarily happy or fine with it. Acceptance is a process and you neglect that at your own cost. Piggy grieving experiences can help.
Nevertheless, there was still yet another big surprise in store for me: I have discovered that I am not just the full daughter of an autistic boss who was legendary in his own time and field but also of my social enabler mother who looked after a whole village: I have inherited her empathetic sensitivity to distress and emotional need - hence the accuracy with getting it exactly wrong as a youngster. I have the same genuine need to soothe and there is nothing wrong with my instincts, whether that is face to face or via a screen. However, finding that out in an orthopaedic ward with all the difficult and extremely painful breaks and recoveries was just about the worst possible environment I could have landed in...
Thankfully my super survival-jacking and lifetime's worth of experience of acquiring and creating coping and blocking mechanisms have come to my aid: in my hour of need, I have had it all on tap and ready for use.
But more on that on another day. It's time to put my zimmer frames and myself to bed now! I am still very weak and very wobbly after the longest spell of time out of bed so far.
After all, I am actually dealing with two different disabilities at once: a healing major skeletal bone (weight! no bending down!) plus Super Mario whacking around with my sense of balance since I have started reducing my steroids.
I am currently living on a sailing ship that is constantly in motion. Avoiding falls is very much a nonstop challenge but it also affects me even when I am just sitting in a chair (or especially there). I am constantly adjusting your balance second by second without a chance for a rest. It's much harder work than you imagine.
But every day has been better so far and I have been able to do more. I am getting there...
While I am currently about halfway through my half hip replacement operation recovery, the break has turned out to be the least of my concerns...
Things started going increasingly weird since the The Potteries Christmas Fair fundraiser in Kidsgrove on 16th November when I was suddenly unable to keep my sandwich tray horizontal, something that has never happened before. In the following days I was feeling - as expected - very exhausted but things got really and rather quickly strange all of a sudden over the following few days until it all came to a head when the left side of my body malfunctioned and I had actually several (harmless) falls trying to get to alert my hard of hearing hub who'd already gone to bed by Wednesday evening before my left leg gave under me and I fell straight onto my hip causing a clean break through the hip ball joint that is cradled at the top of the thigh bone.
Arriving in hospital in an ambulance in the middle of the night with a left hand with sausages attached - not fingers - that literally had no idea or any programming or contact with my brain whatsoever about what to do, including grasping a glass of water is quite frankly a much more disconcerting experience against which a broken hip bone kind of pales as soon as pain relief kicks in!
I had my hip op on the second day after my arrival in hospital (God bless nerve blocks) and kept myself busy with finger exercises to try and get my left hand working again whenever I wasn't woozed out. Useful way to pass time... but trying to think into body parts to try and make them work is tough. It took me over an hour one day just to work out how to get my left hand into my house coat sleeve the right way round. Actually, it was pretty scary. And the amount of dropped, toppled and dumped and bumped stuff I produced in those early days was considerable. I only trained grasping with my left hand with the water glass; there were simply too many spillages.
After plenty of checks and scans on the first day after my arrival it turns out that I have inoperable tumours in my brain that are not quite cancer yet as well as other lumps and bumps in various areas of my body that are not quite cancer yet. I will never be able to trust my body fully again. Fact of life; live with it, Wiebke. Piggies do it, so can you.
I'm not afraid of death or dying (after having about 40 piggies dying at home over the years and your mother-in-law passing away during your hospice shift sitting with her you do develop a bit of different perspective). My dad's own journey with terminal cancer - he was a fighter - has also given me insights and perceptions that I can draw back on.
Anyway, by that point I had already come to a similar conclusion that it must have been either a stroke (but the symptoms were not right since both my mother-in-law and my mother described their own experience with strokes to me) or it would have to be a growth of some sort that was scrambling my left side of the body, so the news was not a total shock for me. With cancer so prevalent now, it was definitely in race for me.
I've decided to call the new stealth installation in my head Super Mario, who keeps gunning at the other side of the body. It is a very useful concept: something that visualises it but that I can joke about, be angry about and with etc.
BUT it is something that is decidedly not ME and that I am not allowing it to define me and take over my life. It has a format that cannot threaten or overwhelm me even my weaker moments; I am still the stronger one.
Anyway, I reacted to my diagnosis in the same but somewhat less common way that my dad did when he got his own terminal cancer diagnosis aged just two years older than me: we both went full tilt forward. My sister explained to me that in some cases of cancer or terminal diagnosis the survival instinct kicks in so immediately and strongly that it takes totally over. I can concur: thought is not involved. You are just suddenly sitting in this super duper formula 1 car that is racing ahead on high octane adrenalin, fully focused on living. It is an exhilarating experience. And in my case obviously genetic.
Are you still with me? I am just getting warmed up here.
I am 61 years old and have found out the hard way that I am a long way further up on the autism scale than I ever thought I could be. Since I am of that generation where autism was something for just a few extremely difficult boys and I was simply the quiet, socially awkward girl happily stuck reading in a corner with a talent for saying exactly the wrong thing to exactly the wrong person at the wrong time, it's kind of hovered a little in recent years but not been exactly of any importance. I've had my private life down pat and autism frankly didn't feature in it at any point.
So hello, sensory overload! Not quite so nice to meet you. I've had a couple of meltdowns when it did get too much next to a dying woman having longer visiting time with her best friends and family on the same evening as I got my tumour diagnosis and I stumbled onto the biographical age link with my dad; he was only two years older than I am now. That was the worst night.
But otherwise extremely nice meeting my autistic side, actually. I experience it as my new super power because it is really helping me to cope with the whole experience. It makes me finally feel whole; like I have found my main 'on' switch at last. Not the least it explains my forum guides: why they are so clear and practical, why I can see things and connections that others can't etc. Being different has major advantages and it gives you a total freedom of thought and a wonderful wide playing field where you can make your own rules.
I am also able to channel a lot through my really strong bloody minded autism focus in terms of regaining control over my body and life again but also some of my harder feelings. What has happened has happened - but it is not OK. I need to live with it but I do not have to be necessarily happy or fine with it. Acceptance is a process and you neglect that at your own cost. Piggy grieving experiences can help.
Nevertheless, there was still yet another big surprise in store for me: I have discovered that I am not just the full daughter of an autistic boss who was legendary in his own time and field but also of my social enabler mother who looked after a whole village: I have inherited her empathetic sensitivity to distress and emotional need - hence the accuracy with getting it exactly wrong as a youngster. I have the same genuine need to soothe and there is nothing wrong with my instincts, whether that is face to face or via a screen. However, finding that out in an orthopaedic ward with all the difficult and extremely painful breaks and recoveries was just about the worst possible environment I could have landed in...
Thankfully my super survival-jacking and lifetime's worth of experience of acquiring and creating coping and blocking mechanisms have come to my aid: in my hour of need, I have had it all on tap and ready for use.
But more on that on another day. It's time to put my zimmer frames and myself to bed now! I am still very weak and very wobbly after the longest spell of time out of bed so far.
After all, I am actually dealing with two different disabilities at once: a healing major skeletal bone (weight! no bending down!) plus Super Mario whacking around with my sense of balance since I have started reducing my steroids.
I am currently living on a sailing ship that is constantly in motion. Avoiding falls is very much a nonstop challenge but it also affects me even when I am just sitting in a chair (or especially there). I am constantly adjusting your balance second by second without a chance for a rest. It's much harder work than you imagine.
But every day has been better so far and I have been able to do more. I am getting there...
