Blog > Thoughts > Sean's Thoughts > Back injuries and hospital stays
Back injuries and hospital stays
Written by Sean on Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Last week, I fell on my back, from a ladder about 1.5m (4’ 6”) high. Landed, as luck would have it, right at L1-L2. Skin cut. Big nasty bruise. Bruised nerve too, but no permanent damage. Afterwards even though I was winded and in pain, I was able to wiggle toes and fingers and all. I picked myself off the ground and walked to the emergency department at the hospital, 2 or so blocks away from home. I figured it wasn’t a good idea to drive, and it felt silly to ring for an ambulance given I was just knocked out a bit.
Turns out I got there in shock but quite lucid. Lucid enough that I didn’t appear in shock, and I waited in the waiting room for 90 minutes before my partner arrived and insisted I was at least given a bed.
I think by then adrenaline had worn off, and pain overtook me. So much so they considered putting me on morphine drip! My phobia of needles got them to try other avenues first (well, memory of that night is a tad shaky, I may recall wrongly). Sooo, I can safely say Tremadol (synthetic morphine) works nicely, thank you very much.
Back pain, in generous amount. I thought I was handling it ok, until they sat me up to take off my layers of sweaters. Blubbered to tears and sobs, fell apart. Pins and needles in right leg, from knee down. Bit of incontinence as well.
Quick neuro exam at about 2am. Xray showed nothing. At 8am following day, I was admitted to orthopaedic ward, for observation and pain management. I was in that ward for 4 and a half days.
I had time a-plenty to do a lot of thinking, and I shall share some of those thoughts with you in the next wee while. But for now, this update will have to do, as I must go lay down again.
[tags]Fall, Injury, Back, Pain, Nerve, Damage, Hospital, Back+Pain, Nerve+Damage, Blog[/tags]This entry appears in Sean's Thoughts, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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