Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

I broke my ankle and dislocated it. It needs surgery but that can't happen for some days yet. I finally got to go home late this evening.

The hospital staff had to fix the dislocation first so in the wee hours of this morning I got The Good Drugs to sedate me, kept focusing on D and chatting shit to him, and eventually realized that the people who'd been gathered around me were gone and while my right leg was still covered in my rainbow dungarees/overalls, the left one had a big white cast on it up to my knee.

My anxiety was -- is -- through the roof, I was a huge baby about the cannula being put in because I have all these annoying body-horror-like triggers about needles. It's not (just) the pain, they've always freaked me out so much I can't stand to even see them on other people. And I'd never had one before so I was such a mess. D held my head close to him and let me sob into his belly as he stood next to where I was lying down. He was such a star the whole time, finally going home only when I told him it was okay because nothing else was going to happen for a while, which I think was about 5 this morning.

That was when an orthopedic surgeon confirmed I have to have an operation on the ankle. This had been expected early on but was really overwhelming to have confirmed! But yeah I proper fucked my ankle up: the radiologist originally said they've only had one that looked worse than mine lately, but when he looked back at my xray changed his mind and said mine was the worst.

That orthopedic doctor was the first person to sort out my names and ask me my pronouns, which surprised me I guess because I'm used to doctors and not thinking they have time for such interpersonal niceties. He needed to sort out my names because...well, put it this way: The good news is that hospital staff have been pretty conscientious about calling me by my "preferred name" rather than my "full name."

The bad news is that for some reason they've gotten it backwards. My wristband says that my name is Erik but Holly is the preferred name. I overheard a nurse trying to transfer me out of the resus ward after the sedation and cast actually describe me as "she's transgender, male to female." The bag for my belongings when we thought I'd be having the operation today (spoilers: not even close) was labeled "Erik [Misspelling of Last Name as Much More Common Name] (Holly)." The brackets-Holly again sent me into weird giggles at the absurdity of it all.

I can't fault these staff, they're just going with what's on their computers. I have no idea how it ended up that way, but they were actually being perfectly good and sensitive about it, based on the information they have.

I'm not even mad, it was so funny for quite a while, and then just disorienting. I found myself caring much less about which name people chose and caring more that it was all the same one.

Because this confusion caused yet more nonsense and shenanigans when I was finally being moved to that ward... which didn't want me anyway because of a misunderstanding about why I was on the resus ward, and then didn't want me because I was introduced as Erik by the amazing porter who'd taken me to and fro all over the hospital that night already and has a rainbow lanyard and complimented my rainbow shoes. So the guy gatekeeping this ward was like "we have a female bed." I am still female in terms of my NHS records, but of course we had to stand (or, in my case, semi-recline) around quite a while as they asked me unanswerable questions ("are you Holly or Erik?") and all I wanted was to go to sleep because it was like six in the morning by this point.

That porter was so amazing I'm going to try to figure out if you can officially thank them. I explained the name problem to her and she said said "you look like Erik!" which was really touching (especially because I'd long since taken off the binder I'd worn out of the house the previous evening and thus was naked under my t-shirt). When I was finally allowed on that ward, she pushed me to a room that had a literal bed but no mattress on it. She disappeared got me a mattress, telling me it wasn't really her job but it would be a lot quicker than waiting for the nursing staff. She clearly does this kind of thing all the time; on the trip over she was telling me about her two teenagers and her toddler and there was something motherly about her practicality and focusing on results more than processes. She advocated for me to get a blanket, which I never did (just an extra sheet, which is not the same! not only is it not as warm, it's much more likely to tangle around your legs or the other sheets or whatever.

The first thing that happened to me on that ward was someone who gave off more HCA vibes than nurse (almost no one on the ward told me their name or role or anything) asking me to do swabs. "One goes in your nose" -- easy from LFTs -- one she just lifted her scrub top a bit and gestured so I said "I'm registered blind, I don't understand, what do you mean?" and still had to guess wrong ("Belly?") before she said "your groin." Sheesh. The combination of the language barrier (she spoke English better than I can speak any other language, but she was also used to getting by on a lot of gestures) and even healthcare staff's sheepishness about referring to some parts of the body made this such a stalemate: she didn't want to say any words and I couldn't do anything until some more words had been said.

The second thing that happened to me on the ward was a blood draw that was so upsetting and painful that it makes this one look moderate by comparison. This time there was no stopping no matter how I reacted, so I was left to cry and try not to scream loud enough to wake everyone at 6:30am and when she was done with like five vials she just muttered "thank you" and scuttled out of the room. I know I was making her uncomfortable, and she seemed genuinely taken aback by my reaction to what she said (and I believe!) were her best attempts to be gentle, but sheesh she could have offered me a tissue for my tear-covered face or at least a perfunctory "Are you okay?" (not that I would have known how to answer that, of course, but still it's a recognition of shared humanity).

Things never really got easier from a blindie point of view than they were when I made someone say the word groin. People appeared, rarely spoke to me, did random things like empty bins, go into the bathroom and come out again, and expect me to do things like hold up my hand so the pulse oximeter could be put on a finger, which were very reasonable in themselves but were usually accompanied by no words at all, just (to use this example which happened more than once) holding the oximeter out, pinched open ready to to on a finger I was supposed to produce, without a single word being exchanged. It was exhausting and stressful, especially on a night when I was overwhelmed with anxiety and had had at most one hour of sleep.

They can't operate until the swelling goes down which will take several days.

A whole team of doctors appeared at one point and explained that the operation couldn't happen today, indeed couldn't happen until the swelling has gone down which is expected to take until Thursday or Friday. The doctor speaking to me wanted me to stay in the hospital until then but I burst into tears on the spot at the very idea and and insisted on going home. I'd be in a mental health crisis long before Thursday if the stay wasn't absolutely necessary. And it's not. When he said "Well sometimes it's hard to get beds back and there might be a delay," it was all I could do to say "That's a you problem, not a me problem." I could have maybe sucked it up one night, but no longer. And honestly after the day I've had, I felt pretty close to a mental health crisis anyway.

Of course it didn't help that I hadn't had my regular meds, all three of which (contraceptive, testosterone and an actual antidepressant) have a role to play in keeping my mental health stable. The doctor said he hadn't prescribed them and I needed to let the nurses know the doses, but that was when I was nil by mouth in the expectation that surgery would happen today, and that includes no water and no meds! (Well my testosterone isn't by mouth of course, but that would be by far the most difficult one to explain or convince them to provide when they thought I was the opposite kind of trans...!)

The physios came, two of them, which not just crutches but a little walker which one of them explained they thought might work better for me with my visual impairment, which she also asked intelligent questions around. It was the first (and quite possibly only?) moment of intersectionality I got to enjoy on this whole nightmare of a hospital visit. I tried the crutches and found out I'm probably better with USian armpit crutches than UK crutches you just hold in your hands basically. I tried the walker too and they were happy with how much more stable that is. I asked if I could take both and they were fine with that so I did! One of the physios said she'd been skating at Ardwick a bunch and it was great, so I felt a bit less bad about doing that! It is great, if you aren't in an inexplicable and freakish accident!

(The charge nurse on the Rapid Assessment Unit where I spent the first several hours of this hospital stay, who was very queer-coded, was so interested in the idea of going to a queer roller disco that D handed him the extra sticker he'd picked up, as a kind of business card. So again I felt like I wasn't doing anything completely outlandish in the eyes of health professionals, which felt good!)

The disappointing news of not being able to have the operation today at least meant I could ask for water and have breakfast. Given the list (clearly from memory) of "We have cornflakes, weetabix...porridge," I gladly chose porridge because I still don't understand weetabix and cornflakes is nothing with milk on it. What eventually arrived was cold not in the sense that it had been warmed normally and returned to room temperature (which is gross) but in the sense that milk out of the fridge had been poured on whatever the local equivalent of Cream of Rice is called and then that had been brought to me. Whatever; it was food, I ate it. Lunch was even more challenging: the vegetarian option made the nurse giggle and roll her eyes a little when she said it: vegetarian hotpot. Hotpot is a particularly boring stew/casserole kind of thing that traditionally has lamb in it so clearly the idea of a veggie one struck her as unlikely or amusing. It had baked beans in it, whose sauce provided the only flavoring I could detect. Also, the hotpot's traditional big slices of potato didn't stop it from being served with mashed potatoes, any more than its carrots and peas kept it de being swerved with frozen mixed vegetables which were also mostly the same ones. I refused to eat that many potatoes, or to touch the dessert which seemed to be cake and jam swimming in custard. Before I even knew it was lunchtime, I could smell the custard. I can't stand custard.

D came to visit around 2:30, two hours after I'd had all the tests that I'd been told I needed in order to be discharged and about four hours before I finally got discharged. It was a long, boring and frustrating afternoon, but at least I had good company, a hand to hold, and the phone charger and tracksuit bottoms I'd asked him to bring me so I could stop lying in a bed in my boxers with my phone on 3% battery.

We got home to a very excited Gary who was very baffled as to why I had to shuffle into the house on my butt (to get over the one step that I'm sure there's a better way to manage but which I'm too tired and unskilled to come up with tonight) but was happy it put me so soon within sniffing and petting distance for him.

His happiness to see me is mixed with bafflement that I won't walk him or respond like I usually do when he asks me for things. He's sad and it makes me sad. I'm determined to figure out how to accompany him on some walks, which feels impossible now and also really disappointing when I'm used to being the person most reliably able to walk him.

It's good to be back, but so overwhelming too. So much to think about: a bed has been made up for me to sleep downstairs but that means navigating one step (of the kind I couldn't do except on my butt earlier!) just to go to the loo or get anything from the kitchen. And that bathroom is smaller, can I fit without bumping my foot on everything? Is the day bed going to provide more obstacles to bump into than my bigger and totally flat bed upstairs? Where I can also work and more easily get to a bigger bathroom...but then there's still a step down, but it's closer to the bannister so can I grab that? But then what about food? And social stuff with the household in the evenings. And walking the dog.

Too much to think about.

And I am still not sure what on earth to do about work in the morning. I don't want to do nothing all day, having found that so miserable today, but is my addled brain really up to knowledge work? I suppose to some extent it means it depends on how I sleep.