What Was I Thinking!…..Moving House, Spinal Surgery and Multiple Broken Bones

I never expected moving to be easy. It’s why I spent months and months in the planning phase, in an attempt to mitigate any unforseen health events.

Needing repeat spinal surgery, just as our home had sold, was not the best start. So my well thought out plans were clearly going to unravel quite quickly.

Aside from the surgery, I just wasn’t quite prepared for how spectacularly my body would revolt against the whole moving process.

Let the Chaos of Moving Begin

I thought I understood my bone disease inside out. On many levels I do but I have spent 4 years living a life accommodating extreme bone pain and ongoing fractures throughout my body. I have a workable routine. I stick to a daily schedule of movement, rest, movement, rest.

As the house move process began, the first thing to go was the morning rest period. I seemed to cope ok at first. Until we hit days where appointments and schedules took over the mornings. As the weeks went on I began missing my afternoon rest period too. An almost fatal mistake.

Last week was probably the most difficult in terms of long days and simply being upright, for way too long, had severe consequences on my fractured body.

On the Monday we moved out of our home into temporary accomodation. It was a bit like a mini move as we had to make sure our existing home was completely ready for the packers to come in the next day. We also needed to settle into the air bnb we were escaping to, so we could function during the chaos of our house being packed and manage my health needs as effectively as possible.

Nothing is ever simple when you are disabled. In effect just for the air bnb we were packing for 4 people, my husband and I, my stoma and my disabled body!

Tuesday the professional packers came in. I used the services of an amazing company called “The Finishing Touch”. They are a female company and work in teams of 4 or 5. Within 4 hours our home was fully packed. They very kindly said the speedy result was because we had everything so organised. Our hard work over the previous two weeks paid off at least and saved us quite a bit of money. These wonderful ladies will be unpacking at the other end which is such a relief.  They set your home up as if you’ve lived there forever. So grateful for this service!

And Then Came The Collapse!

On Friday our settlement went through. Goodbye old home, hello new home.

It should have been an exciting day but I could barely breathe from the pain soaring through my body. My feet had multiple foot fractures and were so swollen I couldn’t even wear thongs or slippers.

My spinal surgery site was inflammed and throbbing beyond belief.

My collar bone had a stress fracture and my jaw was so inflammed it was causing me to constantly bite through my tongue as my teeth were misaligned.

Plus I was trying to manage my adrenal insufficiency with constant updosing of hydrocortisone to keep me out of hospital. It was clear I was in a mess!

My husband and I decided, under the circumstances, picking up the keys to our new home on settlement day just wasn’t going to happen. We needed to get to our next temporary accomodation (closer to our new home) as quickly as possible to start the recovery process. It was a long weekend so 3 days of rest were on offer and we were determined to grab them before the next phase of moving begins..

Let The Rest Commence

I really can’t remember Saturday. When you’re body is screaming at you the word “rest” is really an anomaly. It’s more like torture as you stop and allow yourself to feel every bit of the agony being thrown at you. You just want the day to be over. Sleep isn’t possible and generally you are even asking too much of pain medication.

Sunday I began to see some fruit for my rest labours. Finally I could see I had feet and toes rather than deformed stubbs that looked like pig trotters. I even managed to squeeze into my sandals, with the help of my husband.

Today, exhaustion has hit. I needed to double my Hydrocortisone as I just couldn’t move. It was important to get to this place though. To feel tiredness is strangely comforting when you’ve been in too much pain to feel much else.

‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.”

1 Samuel 25 v 6 (ESV)

The Next Chapter

Tomorrow starts the next chapter of our move and of our lives.

We pick up the keys to our new home. I’m still not feeling excited, as the pain and fatigue continue to overwhelm me, but I’m looking forward to getting on with things.

It’s still 10 days until we move in as we need to make a few alterations to our new home, to accommodate my health,  as well as instal blinds and curtains.

I also need to make sure I pace absolutely everything and schedule lots of rest periods. Dangling on my legs, even when supported by a walker, is just not an option with multiple broken bones. Lesson learned!

I look forward to welcoming you to my new home, as I’m sure it will be the topic of my next blog post.

In the meantime please excuse me as I go and have a much needed lie down.

Moving House, spinal surgery and multiple broken bones….what was I thinking!

Take care

Sam xx

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