You Will Never Walk again

I need to know after all that did I go to the toilet?.....No, that's funny! I'm not busting anymore and I don't go for another 3 days and then, ( too much info hey!) Well after I do and it's an embarrassing experience (being in a ward with 3 guys) I don't go for another 6 days. I have an indwelling catheter and a bag. I have to have someone help me into a bathroom on a commode via a lifter (male wardsmen) and they have to shower me. This isn't right!! I only broke my back and they've fixed that now what's the deal? What do you mean I won't be able to use my bladder and bowels the same way ever again. What! on a bladder bag for the rest of my life!!! I have to retrain my bowels with what!! enemas, suppositories and gloves....holy holy this isn't right ....This is a nightmare, I'm overwhelmed by all the extra issues of the condition I find myself in. Too many.....toooo many, someone has to come in with something positive to hang onto about all this...
The 3rd day they get me into a wheelchair and I am to go to the Gym, for what! I don't get this, no-one from the hospital comes and speaks to me about what I have to do now.
I go with Jenni and they want to get me to transfer onto a plinth. How, I can't lift my leg over it's too heavy. I have no balance. I am petrified of falling out of the chair. I don't feel strong enough and yet I thought I was pretty fit.
Look, can I just put my legs in that machine so my legs don't forget how to walk.....if I do that everyday they will remember and just do it won't they?.. I have been up for a while and I'm tired I need a rest..back to bed...next day they want me up again.....Hold on... you get 4 days rest when you have a baby and I have just had major surgery and I have stitches in my back and on my hip where they did a bone graft.. not today..If I was ok to do all this gym stuff, why am I on heaps of pain killers still.... this is too real, like it's really happening and it'a not going away or getting better.
The days now run into each other.The food is terrible so I can't eat it. My brother Lee and his wife Lisa have come to see me. Lee looks so sad and I can tell he is not handling this at all, my other Paul rings from Texas USA. Damn what have I done!!! The phone rings all day and Jenni has to take the calls as I can't say it again "I fell off the ladder and broke my back"
My girls Donna, Suzie, Jenni, Tina, Alison and Billie-Jean come visit with some of their partners and my newest grandchild Lola around 5 weeks old.She is hard to hold as I have no balance. I'm a grandma, I'm supposed to be able to cuddle and play with my grandchildren. This is punishment. This isn't fair...., I had planned to do so many things with my 12 grandchildren. All that is going to change.
My Sydney friends drop in too. I'm moved in and out of the men's ward when no-one has an infection. I can't believe still that this is real. The surgeon has come in to tell me I will never walk again, again, like he has to make the point. But I can feel things, I tried to move my toes and my right toe moved. Alison was there, she saw it. But no, even though I tell the nurses I am told again. You will never walk again.
Nightmares every night, I am dreaming about the fall over and over. The crash of the ladder.....oh why couldn't I have held on and not fallen back onto it. Why didn't I check it better....Why was I in such a hurry....oh yes I needed to go to the toilet..why didn't I just hold on until Rick was finfished in there...all day and night I'm thinking.. thinking.
Every night staff come in to turn me over to stop pressure sores. Every 2 hours... I'm tired it's too much to come to terms with.I can't turn myself or move my legs as they are too heavy... I'm sorry... sorry... my girls have all been crying .. so have some of my friends. I get lot's of phone calls from friends and family far and wide.They send flowers and cards and I am in the hospital bed in the ward so I feel that I am just sick and that I am going to get better and my legs will start to work. I have to go to see the social worker..she's nice..she'll fix things she is sorting things out. I have to fill out forms to get on a disibility pension......Oh my God... I've lost my job...I loved that job...I will have to live somewhere else...can't go back to Ricks house...I'd be there on my own in a wheelchair....it's miles out of town.....he's miles out of rego with everyone... He has not been very supportive. People blame him for having such a dangerous house...but I chose to be there....that's not his fault....They are angry that it happened to me, they can't fix me either....but my girls come everyday and stay with me. They go to all the meetings with the doctors, nurses, social workers and occupational therapists and take notes on all the medications I have to take and what they are for and ask how they can help me....

22 days later I am sent to Moorong Rehab in Ryde