Appreciate and focus on the small steps for the big one to happen.

Seven days in hospital, operation number two was under my belt, the 10 cm gap in my leg had been temporarily filled with bone cement to hold the gap with some kind of security and braced with a metal plate 30cm long and another plate 8 cm long in the lower part of my leg to secure the weakness of my leg and to assist healing of all the fractures.

Operation number 3 was fast approaching which was going to be to remove the external fix on my arm and to do the bone graft using bone from my pelvis to rebuild 4 cm of damaged bone of the radius.

I had decided, my recovery was going to happen in several stages, and they had to be as my mind and body demanded.

I had become much clearer in my head as I was coming off intravenous drugs and transitioning onto oral medication, but was just the beginning of the medication rollercoaster that was going to go up and down with the more operations I had coming.

My leg was going to take the longest to recover, so I had to focus on the physiotherapy and get the muscle quality back and work on building the muscle up. I was given a CPM machine to use. It's a machine to assist with the range of motion. You place your leg, (or get someone to place it for you) onto the machine. The machine has degree settings that you select and bends your leg automatically for you. I was meant to go on this machine daily for an hour, well I was on it every day starting at two hour lots then having a break for two hours, then back on it for another two hours. I was going to get my leg as strong and healthy as I possibly could. That was all I could really do for my leg for the moment.

My good friend Paul was my physio assistant and much much more, he was pretty much my nurse, he found where everything was kept, and would just take care of things for me. Sometimes you could be waiting for hours for the nurse to come back to you. Just goes to show the work load they are under! Paul was a fabulous help for both me AND the nurses. He'll never be able to be thanked ever enough.

My arm however was the next big focus. I had spent so much time focusing on my leg, my arm had been just tagging along for the ride. I hadn't really been able to do a lot with it other than wiggle my fingers. It was now going to need more of my attention and took away some of my fear I had for my leg. My arm was going to get much more painful before I was on the better side of the recovery.

The operation on my arm took four hours, there was a lot of tugging and pulling to get the bone into place and the new bone to sit smoothly. The real kicker though, was nerves being pulled out of the way for the surgeons to be able to work on the bone and not cause any nerve damage. The pain after was through the roof. I don't think the nurses in post op recovery realised just how much tugging and pulling had taken place during the surgery because the pain medication I had been given was not nearly enough to even make a dent in the level of pain I was in. They had to call the surgeon back and he said, oh hell no, she needs to go back on morphine, let's get her back on the PCA, get it into her as quickly as you can. If you have ever had nerve pain post surgery you will understand the pain I'm talking about. If you haven't, you never want to!! PCA is where you as patient can medicate yourself, but there is no way you can overdose. Great once it kicks in!

Four hours in post op recovery, I went back up to my ward room where my ever faithful support crew were waiting for me.

Still early days really in the grand scheme of things, back to being foggy in the head from the drugs, not being able to move my body very well unaided. I was back to the little things

and the small steps.

It is very easy to take life and its pleasures for granted, to forget the small luxuries we do take for granted everyday. Being able to go to the toilet when YOU want, unaided, to be able to have a shower and wash yourself unaided, do your hair, unaided.

Even just being able to rearrange your butt when sitting down have all been huge challenges for me. But I did learn, it's all the little steps that make the big one happen.