Restoration … still pending

I saw my lovely chair-bearer again, three weeks into the plaster saga. The Balfour Beatty site was a true fortress now, pretty in purple but bristling with padlocks and intercom.

‘How are you doing’? he enquired, eyeing up my cast in its purple re-incarnation.

‘I have written a story about my hand. You and the chair are in it. Would you like a copy’?

Pleased at the thought, he told me his name was Harry and that I should come to Gate 3. Since my husband would pass by on his way to the gym, I asked him to deliver the envelope. My husband is seven years older than me but he still works out twice a week and is, therefore, youthfully svelte and straight-backed. He appeared on the camera monitor at Gate 3 wearing his trendy sports kit and baseball cap, gifted by our daughter. Naturally, Harry became suspicious, much to my husband’s amusement.

One might think that I should become acclimatised to my enshacklement. Day-time was fine but, by supper-time, the thumb had become so swollen that I had to lie down. Consequently, I decided to try a little tweaking. The purple band did yield to my toe-nail clippers but the stockinet got caught up in the attack and the cotton-wool padding was now free to escape. Nevertheless, each evening, I would perform small surgery; more clips, more holes, more escaping and, most frustratingly, more swelling. Each night, as I succumbed to sleep, I vowed to go back to the plaster room. Each morning, I would awake to find the swelling down and would decide to wait one more day. This is the nature of survival, I suppose, a minute, an hour, a day at a time.

They said my arm would be crispy when the cast was removed but, as the days went by, crispy turned to burnt toast. I could feel ‘sharp things’ digging into those vulnerable veins around my wrist and then, I felt liquid flowing.

‘My wrist is bleeding’, I said to my husband.

This ratcheted my anxieties way over the limit. I waited for blood to emerge at the elbow. None came but that didn’t stop my imagination. Previously, visualisation had helped. I would keep very still and imagine that my limb was entirely free and, as long as I didn’t move, the cast would float away. Now, my vision was of plucked chicken, raw and torn, with feather stalks still embedded. The whole was encased with matted blood and the stockinet had turned rusty red. Since visualisation techniques are only as good as the images, I had to make a big switch, all the way from fresh carcass to pink candyfloss, before my blood pressure could settle down. Life might have gone on like that – just getting by – had it not been for the proverbial straw; two straws, actually.

Firstly, my husband decided to leave me. It was all because of a family wedding taking place far away, to which I should have gone had I been fit enough. And, as my husband said,

‘I can’t go all that way without visiting Jim too’.

‘No, Dear’, ‘Yes, Dear’, said I.

I would be without ‘my right arm’ for a week. However, my husband promised to provide me with enough cooked food to last for the duration, just like any good wife should. I did begin to worry that, once I recovered, our house would not be big enough to contain two perfect wives but other concerns conspired to keep that anxiety more or less subliminal.

‘I will open a bottle of red wine just before I leave. That should see you through’, he said.

‘Hmm’, I thought darkly.

However, I must confess that his planning was impeccable. I also knew that a couple of days after his departure, there would be a double set of rat-a-tat tatting on the lower half of my front door. This would herald the return of the grandchildren from their summer holidays in Germany. The six-year-old had sent an illustrated, two-sentence letter, in his best, joined-up handwriting complete with idiosyncratic punctuation:

Dear Gradma! iam glad that, Grandad is cooking very hard for you. I love you

One tall figure stood next to a black pot from which black, wiggly lines of smoke arose. The other, rounder figure (obviously well-fed) had one purple arm.

The other straw came in the post. I knew that my surgeon would be away at the time my cast was due to come off. When I had seen him at the wound check, he wondered if I wanted to wait until he came back in the first week in September.

‘Certainly not’! I said, aghast at the thought. ‘I want it off as soon as possible’.

He was kind enough to come with me to the appointments clerk, where I was told that there were no appointments left.

‘Don’t worry’, my surgeon said, ‘I am allowed to overrule’.

I went home happy and, some ten days later, the expected letter arrived with an appointment for … September 4^th.

‘I knew this would happen’, I grumbled to my husband. I rang King’s straightaway and explained.

‘O.K.’, the appointments clerk said. ‘I can fit you in on the 28^th August but it is a short clinic, so don’t be late’.

‘Could you fit me in the week before’? I asked hopefully.

‘No’! Take the one I’ve offered you, I am going on holiday tomorrow. The letter will be sent second-class’.

A week later, the letter arrived with an appointment for … September 4^th.

STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! I fumed.

Everyone has gone away on holiday and left me in the lurch!

I WILL NOT WAIT! … I WILL DO IT MYSELF!

My husband had gone. I was home alone and free to do whatever I wanted. I searched for the Stanley knife but it was nowhere to be found. Botheration! I would have to buy a new one. The voice within said, ‘Calm down, there is still time’. Well, at least I had a plan. Taking control is a good feeling and I was better already, even though I would still have to wait. Solitude was my companion now. Blessed solitude; it brought me freedom to be my own mistress, freedom to make mischief and also time … time to ponder.

I settled into reflection … and imagined that I was making a long, straight cut through my cast from palm to elbow and was watching as it fell apart sideways, like the opening of a post-war, cardboard Easter egg. My arm would be laid bare for the first time in weeks. Hurrah! But what would it look like? Would it be crispy or burnt toast? Would it be limp and weak, scratched and sore?

The dawning came slowly … If I removed the cast myself, it would be more than just the laying bare of an arm. It would be the laying bare of a soul. It really would be limp and weak for it would be the lily-livered soul of a woman who could not cope. What had happened to that young girl who had sailed through childbirths? Where was she, who had managed to survive the multitudinous adventures, challenges and life-threatening episodes, common to so long a life? How could an arm-cast have felled her so? The answer came softly …

Everyone has an Achilles heel – this is yours. Accept it and wait – all will be well.

It must have been the post falling through the letter-box that stirred me from my reverie. It was another letter from King’s.

Your appointment has been changed from … 4^th September to … 28^th August.

Whoopee!

Next morning, the ‘whoopee’ had dissolved. My hand was truly painful. Winston Churchill described his periods of gloom as ‘the Black Dog’. Knowing that the time had come, I put my black dog firmly on a leash and marched it to King’s. At 9.30am, the plaster room was not yet in full-swing. Sarah took me in hand, or rather, by the hand, as she made a long straight cut from palm to elbow. The cast parted. The time really had come …

My skin wasn’t even crispy. The cotton-wool packing was as white and fluffy as freshly-fallen snow. My cowardice was laid bare for all to see. However, there was something … something that made Sarah hesitate before she applied another cast. She consulted; the registrar, who had participated in my operation, would be coming in for the afternoon session. My arm was put in a sling and I was forbidden to leave the hospital. Thus, I stayed, a captive in the clinic, obliged to watch the world of the halt and the lame as it all unfolded before me.

A one-year-old, with a pink foot-cast was toddling about in drunken fashion while the whole waiting-room held its collective breath. A delightful five-year-old, whose fingers had been crushed by a door, chose me as his audience. I heard about his trip to a city farm before he wound his way through Noah’s Ark and back again. ‘He like to tell stories’, said his weary father. The son agreed and was just about to launch again when his name was called. An eighteen-year-old had been in a car accident in Ibiza. His leg was encased in a bright, Kandinsky-motif cast that did not suit his mood. ‘He is so grumpy‘, his mother confided, ‘Everything is my fault’. ‘But you were not with him in Ibiza’, I said in sympathy. ‘E-X-A-C-T-L-Y’! She pronounced, clicking her tongue in heartfelt agreement. And so they came; row upon row of injured, multi-coloured humanity, united by empathy.

I saw the doctor at 2.0pm and was sent off to X-ray. The wait-time was very long. A woman in a wheelchair was placed next to me. She was accompanied by carers and had clearly come from a residential home. Her only words, as she looked at her leg, were ‘Chucking, Chucking’, repeated endlessly. It was pitiful to see. I closed my eyes and cradled my aching thumb. Images from another world, one where sympathy was strictly curtailed, were filling my mental screen. There were innocent people stranded on a barren mountain-top and images of more innocent people injured in cross-fire. Their tribulations resulted from an armoured-plated blindness. My trial was merely caused by the wear and tear of old age. If they could endure all that, then I must certainly endure this.

When I returned to the plaster room, Sarah was still there, as were all her colleagues. None had taken a lunch-break. They continued to smile and patiently face whatever would limp, or hop or wheel through their ever-open doors. Bravo! To every one of them, I say. At 3.30pm, the doctor gave his verdict. It was to be another cast but this time to encase the thumb to the first digit.

When Sarah asked what colour I wanted, I replied without hesitation – fluorescent yellow. Earlier, I had seen it on a young boy’s elbow-cast. It had emitted a terrific glow, an electric energy – just what I needed. After more pain, I emerged from the plaster room warmly aglow, despite the uncertain prognosis for my hand.

‘Nice colour’, someone said, ‘It matches your nails’.

I smiled but had other plans. Soon, I would have another manicure. Incredibly late in life, I have developed a love-affair with nail polish. Those who have followed the story from its genesis know why and also know that, as long as this plaster saga continues and while my High-Vis cast remains, the coordinating nail colour just has to be … Balfour Beatty purple.

To read the first instalment click here : Restoration Needed