My Accident – Part 3

She Didn’t Even Wait With Me For the Ambulance to Arrive

My employer, who told the Vet I was her best friend just 2 weeks earlier. Who I’d spent nearly every day with for the last 8 years. I used her phone to call the ambulance, she saw the state of me and left me lying on my kitchen floor bleeding. On my own.

I’ll come back to that.

At some point on day 2 (I think) Charlotte had been to my flat, offloaded Bailey to my friend Justine and started taking photos. The top of the stairs carpet was lifted up. You fell down the stairs, she said. There’s blood all down the side. Did I? Still no memory. I received a text from lady’s daughter in law (“DiL”) asking how I was and I’d replied that I had fallen down the stairs due to holes, please make sure L is okay I say, still worrying about her.

There had been an old stairlift in the flat for years which didn’t work (or I definitely would’ve used it!). Sophie and I kept bumping into it, took up the whole stairs and impossible to vacuum underneath. So about 4 or 5 months previous to accident I asked L’s daughter (who L was scared of but was in charge of the purse) if it could be removed. Yes, she said. So I contacted Stannah. They were in and out in no time and left small holes in the carpet at the top, middle & bottom. I took the invoice next door and then L wanted to come and have a look at the space it left. We walked upstairs, I pointed out the holes. Then she looked in the living room and said oh my goodness this needs replacing as well, the carpet is threadbare. Yes, since the day I moved in. Well could I possibly have a hard floor, I said, be easier to clean up after Bailey’s dog hair.

I rang L’s daughter (“LD”) (or she rang me). She asked how the removal went and I said he was in and out in no time but has left small holes in the carpet, top, middle and bottom. “Oh right” she said and moved on to something else. The decor of the flat never concerned her. When I first moved in there was no central heating. Storage heaters (I think?) would chuck out loads of heat until about 10am and nothing for the rest of the day.

Remember that winter when it snowed until March and was minus 10? I had no central heating. No heating in the bathroom. The toilet seat was like ice. Frost on the inside of the windows. To top it off, there was a gap above the bedroom window which LD told me to cover with a dustbin liner and masking tape. It was fixed about 18 months later when she finally believed me. Oh and that was the year the pipes froze so I had no water for 7 days over Christmas. Dream job eh?(!)

No one would visit. You could see your breath in the kitchen. I’d work next door in her lovely warm house and then go back to that. After 4 years of this I told her DiL (who I had a good relationship with) that I couldn’t cope with another winter without heating. And lo, a short while later central heating was installed. Happy days. Ish.

Back to hospital. I’m in a room on my own, with no TV. Previously I was one of those people that needed to be doing 3 things at the same time. Always on the go, TV on, phone call, typing on laptop. I can’t do that anymore. I struggle to focus on one thing with or without outside noise.

No TV but my phone had been found. My ex (Sophie’s dad) found it tied up amongst my bedding. He said he quickly covered the bed before Sophie saw, it looked like a murder scene. So guess what I did to fill the time when I was in and out of consciousness high on morphine? I tweeted. My very first huge mistake which will impact me for the rest of my life. More on that later.

I’m still in ICU, incredible pain when the morphine wears off and totally nauseous when it kicks in. I remember asking for Tramadol (had some at home for slipped neck discs and Fibromyalgia) and they wouldn’t give me any. Can’t remember the reason but said they couldn’t prescribe it to me. Looking back I can see how opium and baby heroin might not be a great mix 🙂

And then I get a phone call from LD. I’d never heard her so sharp with me before. “So what happened? You must have been attacked, you were attacked” And you know when you don’t know and someone is saying you were attacked, can you imagine the emotions that stirred? I was scared and sick. I tried to tell her about Pamela’s monkey fanny but she didn’t find it funny. And then I said “Am I going to lose my job?” She paused for a few seconds too long and said “no”.

Can’t remember if it was that call or whether she called me again but another conversation I remember (how could I forget) she said “You need to send a doctor’s note, we’re not paying you”.  I’m lying in Intensive Care being told I’m lucky to be alive and you’re asking me to send you a doctor’s note? Wow. How did I get so lucky to work for such kind people?

A few weeks prior to accident LD’s husband had told me they loved having me there. They would later paint me out to be the worst person imaginable. A vile Twitter troll.  Me. A Twitter troll. Certainly no one you’d want looking after your mum for 8 years.

They went back through 8 years of my tweets and pulled out anything they could find that was out of context that could be twisted to suit their narrative of me. Me, their mum’s best friend and someone they loved having there. A vile fraudulent twitter troll. Yes it still bloody hurts.

To be continued…..