Part 2
After my CT scan they put me in intensive care and hooked me up to a drip and the usual diagnostic machines for heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, etc. This is the first time I really remember being in any significant amount of pain, however some intravenous morphine soon took care of that, boy that is good stuff! At this stage I figured that I ought to tell my wife what had happened. I had texted her in the ambulance but pretended that I was still snowboarding as I didn't want to worry her over what I thought was a minor injury! This was not a very pleasant experience, as you can imagine, I couldn't think of a way of telling her that I had broken my back without making it sound very scary, needless to say she was very upset and started to make arrangements to come over and see me. I also asked her if she would tell my mum, which was another very upsetting experience for both of them.
At this point Rune said that he would stop with me until my wife arrived, which I was very grateful for, particularly as it ruined the rest of his holiday. The hospital made him up a bed in the intensive care room I was in so he didn't have to find anywhere to stay. At this point in the story I would like to heap praise on the hospital and particularly the intensive care nurses. I felt like I was in a luxury hotel rather than a hospital, nurse would appear seconds after I pressed my little call button and were always forthcoming with the morphine! Although I ate very little as I was on a drip they made sure Rune was very well fed and he told me the food was excellent!
On the first night I slept very little and was quite bored. The heart rate monitor that I was hooked up to had an alarm set on it that went off if my heart rate went below a certain limit. Unfortunately the limit was set quite high, 50bpm at first and as I was relaxing and doing nothing my heart rate dropped below this. When the alarm went off the nurses came in to check on me and lowered the alarm to 45bpm. I said to Rune that I would see how low I could get my heart rate and eventually it went below 45bpm and set the alarms off again. This time the nurse set the alarm to 40bpm. I was really chuffed (very bored don't forget) to eventually get my heart rate down to 39bpm which set the alarm off again. This time when the nurse came in she said that she would turn the alarm off altogether!
I was finding it intensely uncomfortable to lie completely still, even though the Doctors had told me that I had to keep totally still I couldn't help moving my legs about. The next day the Doctor visited as I was bending my legs, he told me in no uncertain terms that I should not be doing that! At that point I took his advice and kept still! On the second night, Friday, my wife arrived and Rune left to pick up the pieces of what was left of his holiday! I again slept very little even with the aid of sleeping tablets.
On Saturday we were told that I had a slot for surgery on the Sunday, so on the Saturday afternoon I was transported down to Ulleval hospital in Oslo. This was another two hour trip in an ambulance but I was starting to get used to this by now! I was admitted into the Orthopaedic ward at Ulleval, which meant no more private room but also no more intensive care. I still couldn't eat however as I had to fast before the operation.