2013.11.19 Carol Goes Under The Knife

Here I sit in my hospital room about to tell you all about my experiences in Sunnybrook Hospital. I spent a month recuperating from a broken femur plus complications.

Here is what happened. D'Arcy and I went to pick something up at Canadian Tire for their gig that night at Working Dog Saloon. We parked our truck and started walking to Canadian Tire. I walked near a BMW SUV with it's Hatchback up. All I remember is the owner of the car saying "Watch out!" He was closing his powered tailgate from the driver's door and didn't notice me until it was too late. I turned to see who was yelling and the door came down and hit me on my head. D'Arcy noticed a trailer hitch I may have hit. My left leg swelled right away as I fell with my left leg covering my right leg. Then a third person called an ambulance on his cell phone. I screamed in pain as the ambulance people transferred me to the stretcher. Then off we went to Sunnybrook Hospital with D'Arcy following in our truck.

We arrived at Sunnybrook and they gave me so much pain killers including morphine which I didn't like except that it did get rid of the pain. I did not even know that D'Arcy was there. He went to do his gig at Working Dog Saloon and came to see me afterwards. I would like to thank Benny Sanders for singing Stray Cat Strut in my honour and D'Arcy for taking a picture of my hat to say they didn't forget me. Our good friend Pete took my camera off D'Arcy and took some more pictures. The pictures are all on the net under The Rave/2013_10_19 Working Dog Saloon.

They had no room for me so they kept me in the hall in a bed. The last meal I had was Saturday morning before the accident They did not feed me till Sunday night because they say I was on call for surgery which only happened Monday. I had two choose between a local with a needle in my spine or general anaesthetic. I chose the general anaesthetic.

It was an eight hour affair, a four hour operation and a four hour recovery. While I was in surgery D'Arcy took care of taking our trailer out of storage and took it the place we bought it at Tyssen Trailers to winterize it and store it for the winter. D'Arcy was in the recovery room when I woke up to feed me ice chips.

The Doctors put a titanium rod in my hip and around twenty staples in my skin. They said there was a stress fracture on the other hip. Because of that they could not send me home right away.

While I was there I met Karla and her students and as Karla was trying to move my leg one of her students fainted so I called for the nurse by pushing my button. Nurses and doctors came from everywhere. Then I went to X-ray and left one person behind but when I returned there were six waiting for me including our friend Glen Singleton who played "Swinging Sheppard Blues" for me on his flute in the hospital room.

They transferred me to Sunnybrook Holland Orthopaedic and Arthritic Centre. When they wheeled me in a room on the seventh floor Room 701 I was pale in color and I couldn't move.

Lisa my nurse took my staples out it only pinched a little except one there was three staples that I made a face. They gave me the staple remover as a souvenir. D'Arcy tried it on a regular staple and it worked for those as well.

We got our three cats fostered elsewhere that was Romeo, Hogan and Ebony. All the food and litter given back to Toronto Cat Rescue.

D'Arcy did a fantastic job with coming to see me, keeping up with his company Vex.Net and cooking and changing the house around so I could come home. I applaud you!

D'Arcy surprised me one day having a guy named Micheal cut my hair in my hospital room.

I want to thank everyone for their cards, visits and Brian Cober who dedicated the song "Tennessee Whiskey" to me at his Sunday night jam.

One scary moment was they wanted me to cut my wedding rings off for surgery but D'Arcy and I put lots of soap and they came off. Then when D'Arcy put them on again later he asked me to marry him again.

One day I left my cell phone on my bed and went to take a shower. While I was gone the nurse made my bed and when I came back there was no cell phone. We called it and it was in the laundry hamper.

On November 8 I went on Wheel Trans to the Working Dog Saloon to see The Rave Play to a packed house. Pictures from my camera which D'Arcy brought for me are on the net.