CW: medical stuff - ankle injury, sickness
Hello! First of all, I’m sorry for not posting a new story on Wednesday. The reason for that will become clear in this post…
Last week, I told you the tale of the first time Cuddles dislocated her ankle when I was around, and promised to tell you what happened this time. That’s today’s post. Well, most of it.
Let me tell you some of what’s been happening over the last week.
It was last Saturday, the 21st. I was still happily fast asleep in bed, and Cuddles was awake and tried to stand up so she could go to the bathroom. Unfortunately she failed at the first bit, by rolling her foot somehow, and popping the ankle right out of its socket.
She screamed, and much like the last time, I went from dead asleep to wide awake in a fraction of a second. Fortunately this time I only needed to get to my knees rather than standing as she had dropped back down onto the bed—so that definitely saved me another faint. Just about.
I get to offering comfort, as she tries to pop it back in again, but after a few tries it’s clear that isn’t going to work this time.
Shit.
Alright.
Time to plan.
Also time for every chronic pain bit of me to increase the hurting because it was forced to move at high speed with no warning, plus my shoulders because that’s where I’m now trying to hold all my tension and weight because the rest of me can’t.
Also, I’m going kind of grey and faint…
So we take a second to have a drink, and make a plan.
Get clothes.
Order taxi to A&E.
Borrow some money to pay for the taxi to A&E, the taxi back from A&E, and some takeout or something because we’re definitely not gonna be making food for a day or two.
But first we need to get Cuddles out the door.
Now, we can’t leave our bedroom door open when we’re out, because Doofus will always, without fail, every time, raid our snacks somehow (she’s a comfort eater). So I get her out the room and close the door.
Downstairs, Cuddles is trying to use my walking stick to help her get outside.
Doofus realises this, and wants to go too, so me and my body that doesn’t work very well on a good day, are trying to hold her back. But her pulling kinda collapses me for just long enough that she slips my grasp and sprints outside (almost knocking Cuddles over in the process).
Normally, if this happens, Cuddles needs to go entice her back, cos, well, of the two of us she usually has a much more working body.
Not today!
Doofus has spotted two humans she wants to befriend, and has gone racing up to say hello—something indicated by the screams suddenly coming my way.
She is a gentle and loving dog, but she’s also an excitable long-legged staffie who doesn’t understand that her excited attempts at a hello are scary to anyone who doesn’t know her.
So I get outside, drop whatever’s in my hands, and shout her name to get her attention, as I apologise profusely to the two humans who are escaping down the street. Then, I grab the little baggie of treats I usually carry (for when the opportunity arises to befriend a random dog/cat), which quickly gets her attention, and I manage to grab her as she comes careening back towards me.
So remember here that I am always in pain, am now in extra pain times 3, and now need to get this dog home and safely indoors without losing her again.
This involves me grabbing her by not just her collar (because she will escape that, she always can), but the scruff of her neck (where it won’t hurt her), picking her front half up, and dragging her by her back feet.
I have to stop a few times because every bit of me keeps threatening to stop working, but finally I get her home, and inside, and we lock the door.
Alright! We’re out, and she’s going to lose her shit on the other side of the door but can’t do anything about that right now, because we need to call a taxi.
But. Of course. There are no taxis available anywhere for over an hour; Cuddles is already really struggling to balance on one leg whilst in agony; and I’m already collapsed on the floor leaning against the wall.
It means we have to do what I was hoping to avoid, which is call an ambulance. So I do that, pass them over to Cuddles when requested, and when she’s done she tells me it’ll be about half an hour.
OK. Good there will be one. But that’s way too long for Cuddles.
So I have to go the house next door where the pillock who set fire to his yard, our yard, and the yard of the people on the other side lives. The shithead who spends the entire time his kids are there screaming at them as they bawl. The absolute tosser who spends the time his kids aren’t there screaming at his dog instead.
So anyway, yeah, not our favourite person, but Cuddles needs a seat.
I have to put on my best neighbourly face and ask pillock’s dad, who answers, if we can borrow a chair for Cuddles while we await the ambulance.
Fortunately they’re happy to do so and provide a chair, which Cuddles sits on as I drop to the floor and lean against it as we wait.
But oops. In all the fun, I forgot to bring Cuddles’ coat because I was trying to hold the dog. And it’s bloody cold!
I start reading Am I The Asshole entries to keep Cuddles entertained, and when she gets cold I give her my jacket which is uber warm and cosy. And when the ambulance arrives, I return the chair with my thanks while they get Cuddles onto a gurney and we all climb aboard.
The usual stuff next. Gas and air for Cuddles. I sit where she can hold my hand, and keep talking to her (she says hearing me talk is comforting). Then we spend the next, like, 8hrs at the hospital. Admittance, x-ray, ankle gets put back in and a backslab cast put on. Another x-ray to check it. Oops, the dislocation also fractured the ankle.
Next we wait for like 4hrs, sharing a cubicle with a teenager and her mum, who are both pretty cool, so we get to spend it chatting which is nice at least. I’m losing my voice through a combination of talking, dry hospital air, and not enough fluid. Cuddles is getting more and more antsy and just wants to leave. Eventually I bribe her to stay, by telling her I won’t get the present I spent some of this hospital time browsing for if she doesn’t. That, plus my regular chasing up of the staff, finally gets us somewhere and we get ourselves a taxi home, where both humans, dog, and all 3 cats, pretty much just collapse onto the bed and stop moving.
When Sunday arrives, we have to start figuring out the absolute minimum we can get away with doing in the house, because Cuddles can’t do the stuff she normally does.
The division of labour we usually have is Cuddles carries most of the physical load and I carry most of the mental load. But Cuddles can’t do the things now, so I somehow need to. So “absolute minimum” is our new watchword. As is “most efficient”. And we start figuring that out.
But of course, a trip to the hospital wouldn’t be complete without picking up some other illness and Cuddles spends Monday alternating between vomiting and trying to run to the toilet in a cast. So I’m the only one left standing at all, and that only barely and with much pain.
Tuesday, Cuddles feels better and spends it recovering, as we both go “oh thank fuck, hopefully this means it missed [me]”.
Wednesday, Cuddles is off to the fracture clinic. I can’t go as she’s using patient transport.
Turns out that’s a good thing because nope, the bug didn’t miss me at all.
I’m lucky in that I never vomit. The last time I had an illness that made me vomit was about 2008 (I vomited blood! And other even more gross things happened! UTIs are no fucking joke!). But it did mean spending my day trying to get to the bathroom in time. Fortunately not vomiting meant I could also take medicine to help with the rest because I wouldn’t just throw it back up again. So that was something. I also very, very, very rarely run a fever, so I didn’t have that. Still got the chills and the shakes though, but fortunately that was easily knocked down with paracetamol.
Thursday I’m mostly better, but still experiencing the tail end of the bug. By bedtime I was a wreck again. But then I slept for 10hrs and felt alive again. Fuck you bug!
Meanwhile, Cuddles now has a lovely blue cast, which is hurting because it’s forcing her ankle and foot to stay at the correct angle and it’s squishing her toes. She had a CT scan, her ankle is all swollen still, and she’ll need 6 weeks of cast, then surgery to tighten her ligaments, then another cast.
So we’re going to be struggling for a while now. Generally, when I have to do a thing that causes more pain, I then need about 3 days to get my body back down to its usual levels. But I’m not getting that right now, because I have to do the things Cuddles normally does because of my pain and mobility problems.
There are things I simply cannot do. So they’re not getting done and I hate it. My anxiety is now permanently in the stratosphere, and it was already bad. I was a giant mess just trying to hold it together before this happened so this is going to suck for the next few months. For both of us. Poor Cuddles is frustrated and in pain and cannot get comfortable. And I know that seeing me struggle is also a struggle for her—as seeing her struggle is for me.
We’re figuring it out a bit at a time…but hey, long term this means Cuddles ankle should be a lot better and more sturdy, so that’s really good.
Bonus: it also means entertaining stories for you! We seem to enjoy long periods of nothing going particularly wrong, followed by something going really, really wrong…
But that’s the crises of the last week covered. I’ll see you next time!
I’m glad to finally be listening to this. I’m sos sorry your family is having to navigate this. ❤️🩹