Thursday, November 25, 2010

Misadventures I could have done without

I really do try to keep this to a stitching blog but for reasons which will become apparent I have no stitching to share.
Without going into the gory details of my own carelessness and inattentiveness I will tell you that last Saturday I broke the ring finger of my left hand.
Off we went to Emergency at Trenton hospital were I was treated promptly and very well...I was X-rayed, IV'd and given a Tetanus shot. I was able to get my rings off without their having to resort to cutting them off which was a good thing.
Then back on the road to Belleville Hospital to see the surgeon. I did have to wait for him but I prefer to think he was busy for those two hours with a patient who needed more urgent care than I did.
Once with him I was dealt with efficiently...frozen, bone and nail restored to their proper places, sewn up, bandaged up and given prescriptions for infection and pain and sent home.
All in all I cannot complain about our Health Care system. It worked very well for me.

Unfortunately, I woke up in the night in incredible pain and my only thought was..that morphine isn't working! I had always heard it banished pain miraculously! Unfortunately, not being in my right mind I did not know and continued to take it ...turns out what I thought was my body responding to the assault of the injury and surgery was really my body reacting badly to the drug. I finally clued into that fact and saw my doctor here in Brighton who told me stop taking it...which I already had but the damage was done.
I was flat out in bed for two days, flat out on the couch for the next two ...Today I am taking it very easy but the dizziness, nausea, lack of appetite, and massive headache are gone.
I think I may survive but it is a sure thing that I will never take morphine again.
I had lots of love, support and help from Dan who cared for me faithfully, even staying home from work on Monday and from my good friends Judie, who visited, stayed with me and brought me some excellent soup, Sharon who also visited and changed our bed for me . I was still pretty fuzzy that day. And Harold who came and walked the dogs.

Today I will venture out and if the headache and wooziness don't return I should be OK to go to my family's Christmas party on Saturday.

Obviously with only one hand in commission and my head not working I have done no stitching but fortunately I did finish finish the 4 Santas into ornaments last Thursday so I will have them to take to the family gathering.

I hope the finger gets better fast, and it seems to be responding well soI will soon be stitching again.

Moral...don't break bones or take drugs especially one's that don't agree with you.

5 comments:

Mary said...

I hope your finger will heal quickly. Definitely an Ouch! I had a morphine drip when I had surgery about 5 years or so ago. I had a reaction to it too. It caused this really weird OCD thing where I thought I was itchy but I kept repeating the same pattern until I finally said, listen I'm not really itchy. I'm doing some weird OCD thing and they finally gave me something different for the pain. They had tried Benedryl which of course wasn't going to work since I wasn't really itchy. It was all in my head. Your reaction sounds absolutely horrible and horrifying. I hope you will get your strength back quickly!

Take care and Hugs!
Mary

Veronica said...

I hope your finger heals fast so you'll be back stitching again in no time. I've never had morphine before but I am however allergic to certain painkillers... definitely not a fun experience to go through.

Lynn said...

How miserable! I know that I don't like morphine. I found that it really makes me ill right after I've received it. Most of my allergies are to medications so I hate having to take anything.
I hope your finger heals quickly and it doesn't impede your stitching too much.

Sharon said...

How horrible, I was hurting for you reading that. I hope you will heal quickly.

Anonymous said...

That's terrible. I hope you are better now. So please tell us how you broke your finger - curious minds are enquiring lol!
Clare