It's a winter's morning in Aberdeen. It has been snowing for days and although there's been a partial thaw, the remnants make for tricky underfoot conditions especially first thing in the morning following sub zero temperatures overnight.
I have hated days like this all of my life. I have never the right shoes for days like this. I have came a cropper before and it's a mixture of cold and nerves which make me shiver on days like this.
I'm opening the shop that morning so I'm out early ahead of time of the regular commute, first up and out it seems. My street is long and winding. It is on a main bus route and while I would usually walk 20 minutes to work, I am already decided to let the bus take the strain today as I leave my flat. If there are buses? I'm trying to think if I have heard one pass already that morning and am uncertain I have as I take my first tentative steps on the icy pavement.
Unfortunately my flat is equidistant between bus stops and even on a good day it's a couple of minutes walk. Thankfully it's all on the flat but so too is ice skating and I have avoided that all of my life for a reason! I am already feeling my feet begin to momentarily give way with each step and I am making small adjustments which are making me sweat on my brow and swear under my breath.
There is no-one at all out on the street. It's never this deserted. Again unusually there isn't a car in motion either. Aberdeen is under a self certificated snow day but no one has told this Weegie! Am I doing this for Glasgow? I don't think I ever consider turning back.
I am slowly and unsurely getting there. No step I'm taking I am sure of and it's taking ages to go anywhere. I try not to feel in any urgency.
It is massive relief and I don't think I have ever felt more grateful when I finally reach the junction. I would normally take it when walking to work. The junction would, on 'normal' days, give me the option to turn left which would take me downhill to the riverside. This is not one of those days. Nothing has been gritted. Nothing is normal.
The slope and the ice make the side street impassable. The bus stop is another twenty yards further on. It's sheltered and there's a patch of clear pavement contained within the shelter. It looks the most welcoming sight, like coming home to a warm fire.
Whether it's the proximity to the bus stop or the thought of finally stepping on terra firma for the first time that morning, I let my confidence and my stride increase and is that a bus I'm now hearing in the distance?
My stride extends as my concentration wavers. I am probably looking at the bus stop now rather than full concentration still on what my feet are doing. It is the bus! I have crossed the junction and I am the striker who is celebrating before the ball has crossed the line. And its a schoolboy error from Spalding.
Funnily enough I'm opposite the local school gates. I have collapsed and my legs are in one almighty mess. I am in an instant disbelief at the carnage of twisted limbs my torso sits atop of. My body and my legs seem separated. I am certain that I have broken both my legs and I am bracing myself for the pain. I am preparing to scream as the bus trundles past me. The drivers eyes were on the road all the time and they haven't noticed my fall. Or they have and it's nothing they haven't seen before. If only this were the case. I am about to feel pain like I have never felt pain before!
There is still no-one else in sight. I have passed no-one I could yell back to. The bus engine noise is fading into the distance and I am sitting broken, still and numb.
Just numb. No pain. No need to yell out in anguish just yet. But it's building and it's inevitable. A part of me is relieved nobody else has just witnessed my spectacular fall. I sort of come to. I don't know how I have come to be facing away from the bus stop now? My eyes are now focusing on the telephone box I have not long passed but it is now back across the junction I have just successfully crossed. I actually wonder if I could hobble in my current pose to make a call for an ambulance. I'm still sure my legs are broken. I can barely look at their level of disfigurement. It makes me feel queazy in my stomach. Thank God I have gone without breakfast that morning. I had already promised myself a sausage roll at The Bakers Oven for my tea break that morning, as a reward! A chill is now moving in on me too.
I have quickly discarded as crazy any thoughts regarding the telephone box and I am now weighing up the consequences of attempting to move my legs. I am still numb. There is a small two brick high wall behind me which marks the border between the row of long disused and boarded up shops I have fallen in front of and the row of residential tenements. The bus stop is just beyond the wall! I begin to move my upper body back to allow my hands to reach for the wall and, on asserting my grip, I begin to stretch my body and relieve the pressure somewhat from my torso on my stricken legs. I feel relief just from the stretch and in a single move I lift myself up to sit upright on the wall.
There's still no pain and now for the first time I can see my legs out in front of me. I can't really describe what I'm feeling. I'm in disbelief. I am actually believing I can fix this myself. My legs look slightly more like their old selves. I am certainly now in a more regular seated position.
Instinct again kicks in - because there sure isn't any textbook for this kind of thing ,- and I'm now vigorously rubbing both my thighs, as if that might help!?
This I carry on for some minutes. I am still fairly certain an ambulance is required and that I can just forget about work and that sausage roll. As I rub I am also beginning to feel for damage and gently press around my knee area. I'm feeling for obvious bone misalignment and/or swelling but there is no reaction to this from my leg, and visually, there is no apparent swelling noticeable albeit through my trouser leg.
More confident than I have been that morning that I have no significant damage I now cup my cold hands under my thighs at my knees and, ignoring the chill of wet trouser, gently begin to raise both knees up towards my chin - the worst knees up of my life by far! - but there's no pain in doing this, I'm feeling in an almost trance-like state, and I'm sure there was a positive response to this from at least one of my feet, both of which are now planted on the ground. I then untie one shoelace and still very gingerly take the shoe and my sock off. There is no apparent swelling to my foot or my ankle and I swear I can feel the chill of the morning rush through my toes. I then press at my toes individually and the blood returns to them as I lift from the pressing and I manage to wiggle each toe individually and collectively. It's the first indication of any sensation and there is a welcome warmth flooding through me now on this discovery.
With my sock and shoe back on, I can't quite believe I am even considering this after what's just occurred but I am now thinking I can stand up. There is only a few metres to reach the bus stop and if I can just get on the bus, depending on how my legs respond to this, I can either get off at my work or carry on to the hospital itself as the bus handily serves both destinations.
There is nothing I can hang on to as I rise and so it's all or nothing on my legs taking the weight of my body. And is that another bus I'm hearing now? I have no concept of the time this has all taken. The bus timetable has been all over the place for days due to the adverse weather. I have been all over the place for maybe 5 minutes tops? Longer? I have no idea
But all my focus now is on being on that next bus. As it comes into view round the bend of my street, I count to three under my breath and lift off. My legs respond like a couple of rocket boosters launching a space shuttle. There's fire in my feet and while I think I have closed my eyes in a silent prayer, I have risen and, slightly bewildered, with a slight whiff of altitude sickness, I am somehow miraculously standing again.
Everything feels like it should and there is no pain involved in standing and my legs are almost moving for the bus themselves before I can quite get my head round my luck. I step on and almost feel like spilling everything that's just happened out to the driver but I only just manage to stop myself.
"I thought it was just me out today!" he said "First passenger of the day!"
I take my ticket and sit. My bum is freezing as I remember how wet my trousers will be from falling. I am again assured by feeling the chill on my bum. In the ten minutes to my stop in the city, I remain in some disbelief that I seem to be entirely fine. I get off my usual stop for work and go about my business as normal prior to the days trading.
All morning I am absolutely fine. I have full mobility and I'm up and down stairs as usual and moving about the shop floor fine. I remain in some state of disbelief but I am seemingly fine and 'dandy! (A wee Aberdeen reference there!)
It is all fine until not long after lunch and by now I have put events of the morning more or less behind me and I am carrying a small box of stock from the basement up to the 1st floor of the store. Without any warning I suddenly feel what amounts to nothing more than a sudden sharp scratch across my kneecap and I can do nothing but collapse. I manage to pick myself up again and gather in my loosely strewn books back into my box. Again nobody but me witnesses this, as I'm partly hidden by a large table display. There are no after effects but I now know that something isn't right.
A few more days go by before this sensation not unlike an-itch-you-must-scratch only this one doesn't last long enough to give you that opportunity, occurs again. This time, I go and see my boss and say I need to arrange quite an urgent appointment with my doctor. I am seen later that afternoon and she arranges for me to attend A&E for a scan on both legs.
Nothing untoward is noticeable from the imaging and I have a few more months of very occasional and all-too-brief incidents involving this scratch. There is no warning sign nor any pattern. I feel like laughing at myself as a coping mechanism but I know I must look like a drunk to unsuspecting passers by and customers who have by now witnessed these incidents occurring.
I am becoming more concerned with each incident and am soon noticing a gradual decline in my mobility. I am beginning to trip on cracks on the pavement and have difficulty with getting up and down even one step without an aid like a rail to help me. I find myself looking for drop down kerbs which help me to cross the road but there is also one or two occasions with oncoming traffic I get on my hands and knees to crawl up onto the pavement as it's the only way I find I can. I no longer have it in me to bring my knee up that far unaided. Any sense of balance and trust in my legs has by now apparently left me.
I am seen by my GP again and she has had time to read through my mountain of notes and is considering that this may connect in some way with my spina bifida. I am momentarily rocked back in my seat as I am fairly certain that no one else in my entire existence to this point has referred to 'that' by name!
I am petrified. She refers me for MRI's and to the Neurosurgical Department at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. She also issues me with a set of crutches to mobilise with and signs a three month long sicknote while investigations take place.
Three months become six months and my crutches are cumbersome and so difficult to manoeuvre with. Doing anything which requires my hands while I'm stood up on them is nigh near impossible and I take to sitting around frustrated as hell at home.
One morning taking a shower there is a massive amount of blood surrounding my feet on the cubicle. I have disturbed a pressure area I've been unaware of existing, from all of the sitting around I have been doing and have opened a small cavity on one of my butt cheeks.
I stem the blood flow using up rolls of toilet paper and attend A&E. By this time I have a date for my spinal surgery but on informing the nurse of this she tells me it won't be attending anywhere while I have this wound. I am now entering months of every second day going back and forward (by bus) to a wound clinic for fresh dressings. Months of additional time off work but thankfully they are supportive; that at least is one less thing I have to worry about.
Eventually after many months delay I receive the all clear from the wound clinic and I am referred back to Neuro. A date is set.
It's for November,16th 2006.
I lived on Walker Road too!
Next time: November 16th 2006.
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