What's a girl to do?

"Day 49 of her incarceration, and La Tarzane is wondering what sag paneer and patatas bravas mixed together would taste like ..."

So, it's been a few weeks now, and I seem to have passed through the bored stage and reached a happy equilibrium of pootling about very slowly and finding lots of little things to fill my day - it's a pity that "not doing anything" (e.g. productive) and "being on enforced holiday" are not recognised occupations, because I feel I have a rare and underused talent in this department.

So what does a one-legged adventurer find to do?




Well, there's been plenty of this; feet up and lounging on the sofa, surfing the net or ploughing my way through books ... this is exacly when being someone who likes lounging for hours in front of the TV would be handy, and I have had the odd evening vegging in front of the box, but I guess I'm just more of a Radio-4-and-a-nice-cup-of-tea kinda gal ...






I have acquired a new skill thanks to my dear friend UrbanCynic - the art of crocheting! It is so easy to get sucked into making things that are pretty to begin with, and it is only after several hours that you realise that your are dangerously close to making a doilie ... but witness a couple of my first efforts, a flowery scarf for summer (above) and a triangular thingy ...


I've also hired a wheelchair, and every now and then one of my dear dear friends has plucked up the energy to push me out into the big wide world and remind me that I am part of society - have so far managed the cinema, a couple of Brian Eno gigs at the Brighton festival, and I'm glad to say more than one cream tea ...

So, overall, things could be a lot worse - who wouldn't want to be sitting the sunshine (OK, a rarity, I admit), partaking of fine courgette and lime cake? Chin up!


P.S. would still be lovely to hear from you though, sometimes need reminding that the rest of the world is still there!

A very British institution

I've mentioned before that I've now got rather more mixed feelings about the NHS, although from what I've heard recently I've had a walk in the park compared to so many - but then I was in the brand spanking new 'flagship' hospital of UCLH in London, so how much worse it must be where hospitals are struggling in old buildings with more limited finances ...

But while things were not all rosy, there were definitely ups as well as downs, and overall it felt like a very British affair, trying hard but failing to pull off anything with efficiency or flair - think the cringing British efforts at the Olympic handover (Boris Johnson, need I say more) after the sheer enormity and genius of the Chinese show ... but then, in that typical British way, we love our crapness and slight eccentricity in so many areas of life - Eddie the Eagle for President! I just don't think a health service is where we should really be putting up with such a kooky approach to standards ...

So in the interests of balance, here is a short summary of the highs and lows of that great British institution - the NHS.

FOR:

- IT'S FREE!!!! At no point since returning to the UK has anyone asked me for any money, with food, care, medecines and crutches made available upfront and without a single question about income or insurance. When compared to Jordan, where none of these things are provided without flashing the cash, or even somewhere like France, where you generally have to pay upfront for all but absolute emergency treatment and then fill out a million forms to get some/all of it reimbursed, the lack of having to worry about money on top of being ill is a blessing, and don't you forget it!

- the many kind nurses and patients who gave me support and made me smile during the long days in hospital. Although I was starting to go stir crazy (even after a relatively short time compared to so many), I felt that I could get through it and could have gone on for longer if necessary. The eternal patience of the nursing staff in particular was a joy for myself and others, and they deserve so much more pay and recognition than they get!


- free availability of pain killers; I was offered a veritable cocktail whenever I asked for it, and we all love the morphine machine ...









NOT SO FOR:

- wards; I know it's a far more efficient use of space, but it only takes one thoughtless biddie or one person in extreme pain to make life for everyone else more uncomfortable

- bureaucracy and note-taking; this was probably the bit that worried me the most - I had a file as thick as an (old-style) telephone book after only a week, but it seemed to consist of a lot of unused pages and forms and then relevant notes either missing, unclear or just plain wrong. For example ...

1. My operation notes and post-op plan did not appear in my file for three days (interestingly corresponding to the May bank holiday), so that for each of those days the doctor on call did not have any idea what had happened to me and what needed to happen next. Twice in those three days the new doctor asked why I was still in hospital and tried to send me home, and it was up to me to explain that due to complications I was supposed to be staying in and resting for a re-evaluation after five days. Good job I was on the ball (while under the effects of major drugs too) and not less feisty or, God forbid, foreign and unable to understand what was going on ...

2. My drugs notes appeared to be spread out all over the place, leading to one drug not being given to me for 3 days. I also had a problem with my antibiotic drip, which I was on for 48 hours before my last operation to fight off a cellulitis infection. I ended up being given the antibiotics for 72 hours in total, rather than for another 72 hours after the operation as the surgeon had requested. Lucky I have a strong immune system eh ...

3. On the morning after my last surgery, I was visited by the registrar who knew my case and he gave me a very brief outline of what had happened and told me to stay in bed and keep the leg elevated at all times. However, someone wrote in my notes that my leg was ready for touch-weightbearing after surgery, and barely 5 minutes after the registrar had gone a woman from physio arrived and announced that I was going to start learning to walk with the leg. I thought she meant hobbling on one leg, but when I got out of bed and was ready to go she strapped a shoe on the bad leg and explained that I was going to have to get used to putting some weight on it as soon as possible. I was a bit confused and said that this didn't sound right, but she insisted that my notes indicated that I was ready for this and pushed me into trying at least one step. I did and it hurt like hell, and fighting back some tears I explained to her that it all didn't make sense because the registrar had been there 5 minutes before telling me not to put any weight on it whatever I did. To be fair, the physio did look confused as well at that point, and I also spotted the registrar down the corridor and suggested that she go and talk to him. She did and came back apologising and telling me to get back into bed. And yet ... the next day the same conversation with a different registrar, as my notes still hadn't been changed, and I would not let this one leave until 'NON-WEIGHTBEARING' had been written in big letters on my file where everyone would see it. Again, lucky I'm feisty and was able to take in what the doctor said through my haze of drugs, rather than acquiescing to doing what I was told even when those things didn't add up ...

All not very confidence-inspiring, and could have turned out so much worse ...

- doctors with shockingly poor bed manners. I thought that this must be one of those stereotypes dating from the bad old days, but was shocked to find that to this day so many of the surgeons and other senior consultants I came across really are that aloof, arrogant and puffed up with their own superiority over us lesser mortals. One guy in particular made me cringe - the first he appeared at the end of my bed with his gaggle of students he ignored me completely even after I said hello. His second visit was even better - I'd been listening to the radio on headphones and didn't notice him arrive, but took off my headphones and apologised when I saw that he was looking at me and saying something. However, for having the temerity to address him AKA God of the known universe I was repelled with the well-deserved comment "I'm not talking to you" and duly ignored again for the rest of the visit. Feeling the love I was not ....

Overall rating of the experience so far? I choose another truly British phrase from the school reports of our yesteryear (and today?) - "could do better"

Bof ...

Just a quick little video that I wanted to share with you, Jordan's King Abdullah talking about working in an Arabic society ... from the horse's mouth!

Help?

I've been forced to do some thinking about my life and the world around me over the last few weeks ... nothing really new to me, but just having certain things reinforced about big institutions, public services and support networks, and where I sit in all that. I'm not sure yet how it will all impact in the long term, but at the moment I'm feeling a lot less certain about throwing myself back into the big wide world on my own ... but maybe I'm just feeling a bit low at the moment.

After the very mixed level of health care I found in Jordan, I was looking forward to getting home to the UK and getting fixed up, having only really had positive experiences of the NHS before that - but then again, how far wrong can you go with vaccinations and the odd smear test? I'm a bit less enthusiastic now, and have heard some real horror stories, but it's a mixed bag which I'll go into later ..

But even more than that, I'm glad that I came back because of all the family and friends I have in the UK who can come and be with me through the tough times - in Jordan I would have felt much more isolated despite the offers of help from my wonderful but busy friends and colleagues, and somehow it's easier to phone up your Mum or your oldest friends and ask them to bring you a flannel or to wash your pyjamas. Also, the setup at my flat in Jordan (many stairs without banisters, deep baths etc) would have made day-to-day living difficult and getting out and about almost impossible.

It's when you're ill or incapacitated in some way that being single and independent takes on a new angle - not having someone at home, always having to ask for help from others who also have their own lives to live ... Both my insurance company and work didn't seem to understand why I wanted to come back to the UK so much, rather than having my treatment in Jordan, and said that since they considered the health care adequate there they also thought I should have stayed there. When I explained to them both that I couldn't even wash on my own, and certainly couldn't go out and shop, and asked if they were going to provide me with any kind of carer in Jordan, they said that it wasn't their responsibility ...

It seems they didn't think I was being completely unreasonable though, but their next tack was to came back to say that I should get someone to come out from the UK to help me. They seemed genuinely surprised when I said that I couldn't think of anyone who could drop everything to come look after me for weeks on end. Even worse, work followed this by saying 'can't your Mum come out?', as if all she does is sit at home crocheting and waiting to be called on to serve her children for months at a time! It has taken me breaking down into tears on the phone to get any sympathy for my situation, and now work is at least pretending to understand how I see things and is offering some help.

In one sense, this just showed me how much my workplace is dominated by old-fashioned attitudes - they didn't suggest my Dad coming out, after all, or imagine that I might come from a ('poor'?) family where people have to work for a living ... a big fat cross against the diversity box! More than that though, this whole situation has hammered home to me how vulnerable I am making myself by choosing to be so far away from loved ones ... and by that I mean the people who will help me get my knickers on, let me cry on their shoulder and put up with me squatting on their sofa for days on end. I feel blessed to have so many true friends like this, but am also feeling torn that my lifestyle and work takes me so far from them - and now have some real experience of the fact that I'm never going to get anywhere near the same level of support from work. I also can't rely on finding similarly fabulous people in every country that I land in, although so far I've been lucky enough, and even when I'm with people who'd like to help, they're not always in a position to and I feel bad asking for too much from people who have their own issues and busy schedules.

But I love my job ... least I have plenty of time to think about it all, another five weeks before I can put any weight on the foot, and then physio, oodles of time to ponder the future ...

Now That's What I Call ... Part V

I can't bring myself to call the rest of what happened after breaking my leg 'adventure' - I think there are many other words to describe what happened between reaching hospital in Aqaba and finally getting back to the UK, and 'adventure' doesn't really seem to fit ... there is certainly a good argument for giving 'incompetence' a star billing, 'chaos' and 'sympathy' (both alone and coupled with 'lack of') and 'Basil Fawlty' are all jostling for position too, and it would be impossible to leave out either 'true friends' or, unfortunately, 'jobsworth'. And of course, throughout it all I went from fairly constant pain to living on a cocktail of increasingly strong mind-altering drugs, so am probably not the best person to relate what happened. Well, this isn't journalism and I'm certainly no Kate Adie, so here are the highlights and lowlights as best as I can remember them.

The nice side of Aqaba ...

Much as I like Aqaba as a town, I don't really want to think too hard about the hospital there and would recommend avoiding it if at all possible ... When I woke up in the middle of the night there after finally having been given enough drugs to send me to sleep, I found that I had been moved off the A&E ward into a room with no lights, no water, no food and no way of calling a nurse. I also seemed to have lost all of my possessions and was again in an excrutiating amount of pain. To my relief, there was another sick person in the room and her elderly auntie who was sleeping on the floor next to the bed, and after a few minutes I decided that I really was in too much pain and woke up the old lady to ask for her help. She was adorable and went off to find some help for me, which is when the three witches of Aqaba AKA the night duty nursing staff turned up next to my bed - when I explained that I was in agony and asked for some pain killers to help me sleep, they looked scornfully at me and said that I'd already had Valium and something else earlier that night, and what did I want more pain killers for? I was almost too stunned to answer, before somehow locating my best calm voice and saying that well, because I was still in pain, and that I really wasn't going to get any sleep without some help. I could feel the disdain waving across the room, and they huffed out and were gone for what seemed like an age ... and then on their return, rolled me on my side (small scream of agony) and jabbed a needle in my arm - I swear they didn't even look at what they were doing, and I still have the bruises from it nearly 3 weeks on.

My friendly nursing staff ...

And as if that wasn't scary enough, I then drifted off to sleep, only to be woken about an hour later with the three witches hovering over me again, in the middle of taking what looked like a REALLY large amount of blood out of my arm - they hadn't even woken me first before putting the needle in! And looked like they were enjoying it too. Creepily, I never found out why they took the blood, and there are no blood test results in my notes from the hospital, so maybe they were vampires after all rather than witches, who knows ...

I woke again early in the morning, slightly more rested but still in pain and still without water, food or any idea where Mike and Vanessa had gone. Then thankfully the nice doctor turned up, and gave me my mobile phone that my friends had given him to pass on to me, and I was able to call for help which arrived about an hour later. The rest of the morning was spent trying to get discharged so that I could get back to Amman - the nice doctor said I was stabilised now and just had to make sure that I got operated on in the next 2 weeks, and gave me some pain killers to see me through and a prescription for what turned out to be the world's most uncomfortable crutches that dug into my armpits because they were just a bit too high for me (but the only other option was too short, which we reckoned was worse than useless). They were good enough to get me into a car and back to Amman though, and when it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to fly home anytime soon thanks to the ash cloud, I settled into waiting in my flat for things to blow over (literally).

Now, I called my doctor in Aqaba 'the nice doctor', and he was very nice, but not the most effective doctor in the world it turns out ... aside from the crutches, he prescribed me the most measly painkillers - paracetamol and one ibuprofen 3 times a day, I've been known to take more for a headache! - and I was in way more pain than the drugs could cope with. On the first night back at my flat in Amman, I ended up nicking some of Mike's back pain drugs just to get to sleep. So the following morning I did some research into the state of medical facilities in Amman (not being massively keen to return to a Jordanian hospital at that point), and eventually got some help to go and see Dr Amr Y Amr, who it turns out is pretty much the best orthopeadic surgeon in Amman - hoorah, competence at last! He took one look at my x-rays and informed that he was going to have to take me into A&E straight away, as my leg was disclocated as well as broken and the dislocation was causing swelling, which was going to prevent anyone from operating on the leg as well as causing lots of extra pain. He then very efficiently got me into theatre and gave me another Valium shot, which he said wouldn't send me to sleep but would mean I wouldn't feel anything while he manipulated the leg back into place ... Well, I'm lucky that I'm one of those people who gets amnesia from Valium, because apparently I was wide awake and very much did feel it when he did his thing, during which (according to my escort) I called him something along the lines of a "f***ing c***" and then fainted. He apparently didn't bat an eyelid, but it explains why some of the nurses and my escort both looked a little shocked and amused when I came round again!

And for those who like that kind of thing, here are the before and after photos - can you see where the dislocation was? Amusingly, when I showed my neice Alice my xrays and asked her if she could see the break, the first thing she pointed to was the dislocation and asked if the bone was in the wrong place, funny how she could see it but the nice doctor missed it ...

Before ...

... and after.

All neatly back in place again, and with some decent painkillers in my pocket, now all I had to do was wait for the swelling to subside and continue to chill out at home until I could get on a plane home - and I was surrounded by help and love at home, especially with Mike and four stranded French friends as well as my flatmate Ruth to look after me. In fact, the next 3 days are full of many warm and happy memories in my mind, including some strong love and great food - and no, I wasn't just high as a kite from the opiates (although it did help!) ...

Now That's What I Call Adventure ... Part IV

Oh, how I wish that reaching the bottom of the mountain was the end of the story - it certainly felt like the end of an ordeal at the time. After everyone had finished cheering and slapping backs and all that, I had to point out that I actually was going to wet myself, and rallied the troops into helping me do this normally simple feat - I can now attest that with no legs strapped to a scoop stretcher it takes 7 people to go for a no. 1 (lifting, tilting, removing clothing and holding up modesty blankets etc)

However, this important task out of the way, I then had to face up to the fact that the story had not reached a conclusion, merely a change of tempo, from scary death-defying physical feats to ... well, looking back, a crescendo of pain is pretty much the best way to describe it. I was put into the back of a pick-up truck - apparently the most comfortable vehicle available - with at least an inch of foam under my bum, and with the two undersupplied paramedics and Mike we set off over the desert to where an ambulance was apparently waiting in Rum village.

A collection of battered old Toyota pickups,
one of which whisked me across the desert ...

The driver had said he would try and drive carefully, and I'm sure he did his best, but with various bones jiggling around in my ankle and still no painkillers, I felt every small vibration, let alone the sand dunes and holes in the ground, between Um Adami and civilisation. Mike did his best to distract me - were we really singing hymns at one point? - and I smoked every cigarette available, but in the end it was just more and more and more pain ... I managed to get the driver to stop a couple of times when I really couldn't take it any more, but of course every stop was a delay in getting to drugs and the hospital, so in the end I just ate the blanket I was under and thought of cool wet grass ...

Two and a half hours later we reached Rum village at last - I was exhausted from the pain, and again breathed a sigh of relief when a trolley bed appeared and I was hoisted onto it and put into the back of the ambulance. And then, once again, my hopes were dashed - no painkillers (in an ambulance?! of course not!), and the nearest hospital over an hour away. Apparently there was all sorts of other shenanigans going on around me too - various army and police guys wanting ID and info - but all I could focus on was pain and my need for DRUGS! So I was very happy indeed to hear Mike and Vanessa give one final 'yallah' to get everyone going, and the ambulance drove off with lights and police escort ...

and no suspension ...

and a driver intent on hitting every pothole in 62.4km between Rum village and Aqaba ...


View Larger Map

... and after I had called everyone in the ambulance pretty much every bad name I knew in several languages, and had a good go at pulling the ambulance apart from the inside and eating my own hand, we finally arrived at Aqaba ... the land of drugs ...

The rest of the evening went by in a bit of a haze until I finally went to sleep - several senior army type guys came and talked to me, and the police tried to interview me, but Mike and Vanessa did a great job of keeping them away and trying to get me seen to and drugged up. At one point I saw Vanessa come in smiling with paperwork for my drugs, only to be dragged away again to have something stamped ... and I had to be x-rayed and interviewed before they would give me valium and strap me up with a back slab. My last memory of the day was Vanessa and the nice doctor smiling and saying that it would all be fine from now on ...

Now That's What I Call Adventure ... Part III

So, to continue the tale ... there we were, stuck 700m up Jordan's highest mountain in the middle of the desert, but actually things were going pretty well - leg strapped up and only giving me a dull thud most of the time, plenty of food, water and sunscreen, and when the sun set below the crest of the mountain the boys built a magnificent camp with a fire right next to me and a wall built by Mike's fair hands to keep the wind off - my Bedouin friends have said that it's such a good camp, they will leave the structures there and christen it 'Camp Jeanne'. By 4pm (three hours later?) we'd still had no word from anyone, but at last our guide Suleiman reappeared and told us that help was on its way.

But then things started to go a bit wobbly. It turned out that Vanessa, sent off to call the Embassy, was still at the bottom of the mountain out of phone range, and so hadn't been able to put a call in, and the 'help' on its way was the tourist police coming to carry me down the mountain. I'm not sure how rude I was at this point, but I tried to say as clearly and calmly as possible in Arabic that the MOST IMPORTANT THING was to make the call to the Embassy, and that Suleiman should go back down NOW and take Vanessa to the village. I also had to translate H's questions and instructions to Suleiman, and later to the tourist police and others who arrived, into Arabic and back from Arabic to English - talk about having to use my language skills "in anger"! I think Suleiman got the message, and off he rushed while we sat back and waited for the airlift. H and Clare had to leave us about this time, but they said they were only leaving because they were happy that I was in good hands and the right help was on its way.

The paramedics on their way up -
this is about one quarter of the rock face between me and the valley ...

About 5.30pm the 'help' arrived - two paramedics with a stretcher was a welcome sight, as was an English-speaking Bedouin nurse with his back pain pills for me and plenty of Bedouin 'muscle', but then it turned out that no-one had any form of communication, no strong pain-killers, and in fact nothing else to help me where I was or to get me down the mountain. To be honest, I really felt for the guys, because they looked like they knew that they couldn't really do much, and wanted to do more but couldn't. After much discussion and deliberating, everyone came to the conclusion that waiting a bit more for the airlift was going to be the best option, with the possibility of staying up on the mountain if need be, and while some guys went up the mountain to see if any of them could get reception and an update, the rest of us got comfy but also started thinking about all the options, wary of the setting sun approaching ...

So, in my head at this point, a beautiful rescue helicopter like this one was going to appear over the mountain to winch me away and rush me to some clean white hospital, all accompanied by a wave of something morphine-like washing over me ...

In fact, what happened is that around 5.30pm the news came through that there was no helicopter coming because I didn't have an open wound and wasn't unconscious - great, not broken enough or remote enough to warrant an airlift! And on top of that, it was starting to get cold, despite the blanket and fire I had. So, we had to face the hard reality that we were going to have to get me down the mountain one or the other. As I said before, moving 30m down a fairly gentle slope earlier in the afternoon was hell, so the thought of getting me down 700m, in some places near vertical, and still with no painkillers was frankly terrifying. Still, what choice was there? So, somewhere around 6pm, we made the call, I gritted my teeth and people got me into the stretcher to start the long descent.

It didn't bode well - they put me on the stretcher, then realised that it was too short and tried to adjust it with me on it, pushing and pulling in all directions. Thank God someone had the bright idea to get me off again and get it the right size first before putting me back on, I don't think I was capable of much beyond shouting a bit incoherently as they jostled me. Then they just lifted me up and headed off - was I the only person to notice that they hadn't actually tied me on to the stretcher, I still wonder? They also made the decision to take me down head first, so that I ended up sloping downwards with a great view of the void below, at some points almost vertical, with the only thing keeping me on the stretcher being my arms gripping for dear life to the stretcher frame, and the stretcher digging into my head. At one point the guys were dithering about which way to go, and i ended up screaming at them that if they didn't just go and get somewhere horizontal to give me a break, I was just going to end up falling off and taking the quick route down, head first ...

After the first few minutes, I decided that keeping my eyes firmly closed was the way forward, and trusting in Michel (who is President of a climbing federation in France and my all-time hero) to keep me safe and sort out the others, we slowly inched down. I don't know how Michel kept his cool through it all - he knew the best way down the mountain, being supremely skilled in that sort of thing and having done it four times that day, but the Bedouin and rescue guys didn't listen to him at first and I really thought he was going to end up lamping one of them - I know I almost did, and they were certainly aware of how cretinous he thought they were. Thankfully though, everyone swallowed their pride and got on with it, especially when complete darkness descended and we had to do the last 30-40 minutes with only Michel's headlamp for light (a rescue team with torches? come on ...). I'm not the best person to judge, but it seemed to take somewhere around 2 hours to get down that cliff, and the relief all round was so great that we all had stop and applaud (after they'd put me down!) and I nearly wet myself with relief. One thing at least, the sheer terror had taken my mind off the foot, and at that point I was just laughing and happy to be alive ....