So there’s this quote I love…
“Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.”
This became my motto. I could wallow in the self pity of not being able to walk properly, see properly, hear properly, or I could see just what I could achieve with the parts of me that were still working.
I think it was around Tuesday when my dressings came off. With the compression gone, my ear kind of exploded out of the side of my head. Whilst I was planning hairstyles that would hide my wonky face and deformed ear with my hair stylist Nicki, the docs and nurses were a little concerned that it could potentially be a CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) leak.
Quite surprisingly, I was not so bothered about the fact that I looked a complete and utter state, I wanted to be up and about. By the Wednesday I had my cathetar removed. Freedom!
As soon as the door closed behind the nurse, who had given me strict instructions that if I needed to move I should call for assistance, I was figuring out the best way to get out of the chair to practice this walking lark.
I used the wheeled table a bit like a walking frame. It was a marker for halfway point between the chair and bathroom door. If I could make it to the bathroom, there was a rail on the door, and then I could use the wash hand basin as support.
And with my plan in place I was off! It took about 10 minutes to shuffle my way to the bathroom, and when I got there I cried (through one eye!).
As I sat on the toilet, celebrating my achievements, along with the fact I could pee by myself, there was a knock on the door.
“I told you to press the buzzer if you needed to move!” I’d been busted.
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