"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts" (Eleanor Roosevelt)Lauren had finally began to accept the help from the doctors which was a huge step in her recovery and lifted a few worries off our minds. The next important milestone was to be the operation on her back to fix the break and give her the support she would need to be able to sit up. Her operation was scheduled for Friday 14th December- exactly one week after the accident. Before the operation Lauren had been moved of the HDU ward and into a little room with just her and another lady on it. This was perfect for her as she hated HDU and it was comforting to see her in a 'normal room'. She had a few visitors in this week, all who took it in turns to sit with her and try to get her to eat as she was still refusing to eat! The one thing she was eating was pots of jelly because it was easy for her to swallow so of course we all went jelly crazy and at one point there must have been near 20 pots of jelly on her nightstand!
In an attempt to get Lauren to eat and drink more I did what any good sister would do- and bribed her! Even in the state Lauren was in I knew the one way to get her to eat something and that was to promise her a pug puppy! She has wanted a pug for ages but Dad has always refused as we have two cats and it would be him who ends up looking after the pug. To get Lauren to eat I said to her "If you eat a little something each day Dad said you can have the pug puppy". And at that she began to eat and got as excited as she could given the pain she was in that she was finally going to get her pug! I went back and told Dad he needed to start saving for a pug and he got all in a flap and was getting ready to leave to find her one there and then! Honestly! But this is what Lauren needed to get on the mend. Some people questioned getting a pug and were worried about how Lauren would look after the dog given the situation but they are so small its not going to cause Lauren too much trouble and at the end of the day you would give your sister/ daughter anything they wanted to get them on the road to recovery.
So with the promise of a pug in the near future, which is going to be called 'Poppy the Pug' (interesting name), we saw Lauren growing a little bit stronger each day leading up to her operation. I became worried though about her memory. She couldn't remember what day it was, the accident or what was going on around her and the next day would forget what had happened the previous day. The doctors had confirmed that she had damage the part of your brain that controls your short-term memory thus there would be some memory loss but her long term memory should be fully intact. Still unsure I tested her memory. I asked her what she calls me and she knew (FYI its Lilly Poodles), it was our Nans, Dad and cousins birthday around that week so I asked if she knew whose birthdays it was and the dates which she could remember and then I played her songs on my I-pad to see if she knew the songs and if she could remember any meaning behind them, which again she did. I remember I played her "Nothing's gonna stop us now" by Starship and she whispered "This is Ange's song". This made me smile and I left her the ipad so she could listen to music when there was nobody there. To ensure her memory was still there I began taking the 'Take a Break' magazines and would do the crosswords at her bed and ask her for the answers. Thankfully she knew the answers to the clues and the ones she got wrong I knew wasn't due to memory loss but just her own intelligence!
I never went to the hospital the day before the operation and decided it was time I faced people I had been putting off seeing. Not that I didn't want to see people just I thought seeing people bring the reality of the situation home. Lauren's friend Kyria wanted to meet as well as Fiona so I decided the sooner I met friends the easier it would be. Walking through town to meet Fi was awful. It felt so weird to be in town with everyone around you carrying on like there isn't a care in the world. I felt like I was in a movie scene- you know when they block out all the sound and your just walking invisible through the crowd. I almost turned round and bailed on them but once I reached the cafe I was fine, although I did hide from a couple of people I saw and didn't want to talk too! Meeting the both was good. The first thing Fi said to me was "Message from Carash, your still going to Vegas & here's a hug from Kat" (I'd actually forgotten about Vegas until then!) Fi treated me to lunch as she said I had lost too much weight and brought me some pressies to cheer me up :) I then went and met Kyria in a different cafe to talk and she too said I had lost weight and I joked well at least its doing the diet some good for a change! Meeting them both and just talking about it actually helped and it was nice to know that we both had friends we could rely on.
Then it was Friday 14th (thank god it wasn't the 13th huh?) and operation time. She was taken down for the operation around 9am and the long wait began. I arrived at the hospital at 1pm and waited in the waiting room. Dad left the hospital as to be fair it didn't need all us sitting at the hospital. So we waited, and waited and waited. We had been told the operation could take around 6hours or longer if the surgeon decided to operate on her hip bones so she could twist easier in the chair. To keep us occupied we had crossword books and they were without doubt the hardest puzzles ever. I don't actually think any of us managed to finish one puzzle the whole time at Kings. Finally about 7pm the nurse came to tell Mum the operation was a success, Lauren was back on HDU and they were just making her comfortable.
The operation on her back was to effectively fix the spinal cord, as in fix the bone damage. Mum and Dad saw the x-ray of her back and they explained that her spinal cord had just broken apart. If you put two fingers on top of one another that represents your spinal cord and then move the fingers apart so there is a gap between the two that is what Lauren's spinal cord looked like. The surgeon built a little cage out of titanium around her spine, the cage was then screwed into her bone to keep it in place and he screwed the broken pieces of bone back together so her spine was aligned again. The screwing of the bones together meant that should would be able to sit straight and no longer be in pain from a broken back. The cage was to support her spine. Some people thought the operation would fix the fact she was unable to walk and it was hard to explain that a broken back does not necessarily mean you can't walk. Its the severing of the nerves that ultimately causes the paralysis. The operation meant that Lauren would be able to start sitting up as she had been flat on her back for a week and her recovery could really begin.
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