After finally being allowed to board the Bangkok-Sydney flight, getting to Melbourne was relatively uncomplicated. A mate Rob collected me from the airport and we drove straight to the ER room at Box Hill hospital.
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur, with lots of the waiting around that comes with medical processes. A physiotherapist did the first real assessment of my condition, making a thorough and rigorous study of the story and the impacts. Although the upper left arm is the main focus, we checked out my chest, abdomen and left leg as well, all of which are still sore.
It was agreed there’d need to be X-rays, which took an hour or so to line up and execute. There were probably a dozen images of my arm and chest taken. The results came back uncontroversially confirming a significantly broken shoulder, in the ball of the humerus as the Laotian hospital had suggested.
However the treatment plan was apparently not as uncontroversial. The portions of broken bone are apparently sitting close enough to the main bone that from the X-rays the surgeon wasn’t clear on whether to advise surgical or non-surgical treatment. So a few hours later a CT scan was added to the data set, and the waiting game resumed.
By about 9pm – 10 hours after admission – the nurses decided that there wasn’t going to be news from the surgeons that day, and sent me “home”. Home for now is a room that’s very generously been made available at Rob’s, by virtue of a couple of his kids bunking in with each other to make space for a broken bikie. A few minutes out from my new temporary home, the surgeon actually made contact.
He explained that both the X-ray and CT scan had shown my situation to be in a grey zone where either surgical or non-surgical treatment were potentially valid. He had spoken with his boss to confirm the approach, and was calling to tell me that the way forward was simply to keep my broken arm in a sing for 6 to 12 weeks.
I have to say that still doesn’t resonate for me, and I feel like surgery is a necessity from the level of pain when I move, and from the level of bruising. But I’m not a medic, and have come 9,000km to get expert advice, so probably should be careful being too quickly dismissive.
I’ve been given an appointment in a week for the surgeon to check on progress. He explained that there’d be several other surgeons present, and that if there were new perspectives there would still be time to change course.
It sounds a long way from a confident and definite way forward. The prevarication about surgery hasn’t filled me with confidence. But I guess it is better to be slow than to be hasty in grabbing for the surgeon’s knife.
I’ve considered getting a second opinion on it all, but have in the end settled that this would just increase the mess and reduce clarity.
Meantime, it really is good to be back in my home country. I’m delighted to put milk in my tea, to fill a drinking glass with water from the tap, to have confidence that every toilet will have a seat and loo paper and not a squat setup and a hose, to have a long list of great cafe options, and endless other small familiarities. I’ve also loved having a change of season and enjoy a bit of cooler Winter, since I’ve been in something close to “Summer” for six months straight. Most of all it has been so, so good even in these early hours to have a (gentle) hug with people I know and love, to look in the eye and shake hands with old friends, to share a bit of family time. With my own people. Whatever richness there is in travel (and there’s lots of it), and however much joy can be found in engaging with people from different backgrounds, it is good to come home. It is good to be home.
I’m now on the lookout for ways to “buy time” before making too many significant decisions about where to live, what my professional world should look like, etc. I’m yet to get clear on what “buying time” looks like, but am not quite ready yet to really rule options out quickly.
I’ve also found that my pain and weariness levels have waxed and waned, and am simply allowing that to wash past without fighting it. If I’m sore I’m taking pain killers. If I’m feeling ok I’ll appreciate the moment. If I’m tired I’ll have a snooze. If I’m awake I’ll stay up.
I still don’t really even have a plan for tomorrow, let alone the weeks or months ahead. But I do expect to get a haircut and get rid of the ridiculous beard that was only there to minimise my “westernness” in the Middle East (and particularly Iraq) which is not super-friendly to the US and allies. Now that’s no longer necessary, I’ll see if I can find my chin.
Other than that I might do some reading, resting, and gentle “pre-planning” of next steps.