Monday and we're back off to the hospital this afternoon for the CT scan. The car journey is still painful, but I find that wrapping a pashmina around my arm and torso keeps it a bit more stable and reduces the jolting sensation. It takes 3 technicians to get me to lie on my back - anything that pulls my shoulder back is unbearable and lying on my back is something that I cannot do. For this unfortunately I have no option. Luckily it doesn't take too long, but it is extremely painful and I only remember afterwards that they can hear everything you say while doing these scans - there was lot of swearing. Maybe that's why they completed it so fast.
They promise to get the report out that afternoon, as I have the followup appointment with Mr Shoulder tomorrow morning. Back home in another painful car journey. And another painful night. The pain gets to be very wearing, it's just constantly dragging at you.
The next morning we have to be up early for an appointment at 8:30 with the consultant. Ordinarily this would not be a problem. But now it takes me over 90 minutes to get up, washed and dressed, and then attempt to eat something, which adds another 30 minutes. So we need to be up before 6am to get all that done.
Mr Shoulder opens with "What are you hoping to hear?". Slightly odd question. I say I hope he's going to tell me this is all a bad dream and it didn't really happen. Unfortunately although he's awfully good at his job, he cannot perform miracles. So I say I hope that I don't need surgery. I have found the CT scan from my rotator cuff investigation back in 2012, and he reads this with interest. Apparently it's very reassuring, as there wasn't a complete tear back then so it should be strong enough to hold my shoulder and arm together while the fracture heals.
He says there is displacement of the humeral head, it has shifted, and isn't in perfect alignment. The misalignment is however not bad enough to make surgery mandatory. The rotator cuff is still attached, which is good news.
So I have to decide if I want surgery or not. The surgery would be to put in a plate and pins/nails to pull everything into normal alignment. The sting is that in 6 months they would have to go back in to remove all the metal bits. So two surgeries, at least. And metal in my arm for 6 months. And holes drilled in my bones.
I decide not. The misalignment won't be enough to cause any major issues in future. He also says that now the rest of the humerus is jammed up hard into the head and is very stable, so it really can't move about any more. He does add a caveat that he may have to go in and "tidy up the rubbish" inside shoulder at some future stage anyway.
So, that decision made, I mention my hand. He says something very odd again "You realise if we investigate and find something, we have to treat it". I would have thought that was the point, yes. He escorts us round to x-ray again, still walking very fast. The technician twists my hand into some painful positions, and then calls another technician in for a look at the screen. After conferring, they contort my poor hand some more and take another view. This is not reassuring.
Back round to Mr Shoulder. Well congratulations, yes, in addition to breaking your left shoulder, you have also broken your right hand. Round he comes again, crouching next to my chair, with a "May I?" as he takes my hand and shows, with exquisitely painful accuracy, where the break is. Base of the first metacarpal, near your wrist. Full break, but luckily stable and not misaligned, so a removable cast will be enough. Ah, that's what he meant by having to treat it - if it had been worse and needed a full cast that would possibly have meant being admitted, as rendering my right hand useless when I already have a useless left arm would have meant it was impossible to be at home.
Mr Shoulder now signs me off work for another 5 weeks and refers me to a local physio to get some range of motion back. One of these makes me happy, the other fills me with dread. He then marches me round to the physiotherapy department to get a removable hand splint fitted.
You certainly do get a very different standard of care in the private system - I can't picture any other surgical consultant actually escorting you to the various departments in the hospital that you need to visit. Also, the NHS fracture clinic appointment would still have been over a week away, so in the time that the NHS thought it was best to leave me at home, in agony, with no pain meds and no medical attention, the private system had given me appropriate pain medication so I could get through the days, and more importantly the nights, and had completed two followup specialist appointments, a followup x-ray to check progress, and a CT scan. I am very grateful for the private GP who prescribed Tramadol and Diazepam, and referred me to the shoulder specialist, and I was very lucky with the consultant she referred me to, he's brilliant.
They promise to get the report out that afternoon, as I have the followup appointment with Mr Shoulder tomorrow morning. Back home in another painful car journey. And another painful night. The pain gets to be very wearing, it's just constantly dragging at you.
The next morning we have to be up early for an appointment at 8:30 with the consultant. Ordinarily this would not be a problem. But now it takes me over 90 minutes to get up, washed and dressed, and then attempt to eat something, which adds another 30 minutes. So we need to be up before 6am to get all that done.
Mr Shoulder opens with "What are you hoping to hear?". Slightly odd question. I say I hope he's going to tell me this is all a bad dream and it didn't really happen. Unfortunately although he's awfully good at his job, he cannot perform miracles. So I say I hope that I don't need surgery. I have found the CT scan from my rotator cuff investigation back in 2012, and he reads this with interest. Apparently it's very reassuring, as there wasn't a complete tear back then so it should be strong enough to hold my shoulder and arm together while the fracture heals.
He says there is displacement of the humeral head, it has shifted, and isn't in perfect alignment. The misalignment is however not bad enough to make surgery mandatory. The rotator cuff is still attached, which is good news.
So I have to decide if I want surgery or not. The surgery would be to put in a plate and pins/nails to pull everything into normal alignment. The sting is that in 6 months they would have to go back in to remove all the metal bits. So two surgeries, at least. And metal in my arm for 6 months. And holes drilled in my bones.
I decide not. The misalignment won't be enough to cause any major issues in future. He also says that now the rest of the humerus is jammed up hard into the head and is very stable, so it really can't move about any more. He does add a caveat that he may have to go in and "tidy up the rubbish" inside shoulder at some future stage anyway.
So, that decision made, I mention my hand. He says something very odd again "You realise if we investigate and find something, we have to treat it". I would have thought that was the point, yes. He escorts us round to x-ray again, still walking very fast. The technician twists my hand into some painful positions, and then calls another technician in for a look at the screen. After conferring, they contort my poor hand some more and take another view. This is not reassuring.
Back round to Mr Shoulder. Well congratulations, yes, in addition to breaking your left shoulder, you have also broken your right hand. Round he comes again, crouching next to my chair, with a "May I?" as he takes my hand and shows, with exquisitely painful accuracy, where the break is. Base of the first metacarpal, near your wrist. Full break, but luckily stable and not misaligned, so a removable cast will be enough. Ah, that's what he meant by having to treat it - if it had been worse and needed a full cast that would possibly have meant being admitted, as rendering my right hand useless when I already have a useless left arm would have meant it was impossible to be at home.
Mr Shoulder now signs me off work for another 5 weeks and refers me to a local physio to get some range of motion back. One of these makes me happy, the other fills me with dread. He then marches me round to the physiotherapy department to get a removable hand splint fitted.
You certainly do get a very different standard of care in the private system - I can't picture any other surgical consultant actually escorting you to the various departments in the hospital that you need to visit. Also, the NHS fracture clinic appointment would still have been over a week away, so in the time that the NHS thought it was best to leave me at home, in agony, with no pain meds and no medical attention, the private system had given me appropriate pain medication so I could get through the days, and more importantly the nights, and had completed two followup specialist appointments, a followup x-ray to check progress, and a CT scan. I am very grateful for the private GP who prescribed Tramadol and Diazepam, and referred me to the shoulder specialist, and I was very lucky with the consultant she referred me to, he's brilliant.
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