Breakage

It's been an interesting few days...with many more to come.  We decided to have a nice relaxing New Years's Eve after a quick, but tiring, trip to Boston to see our son and his family, otherwise known as the East Coast Jungle (our daughter and her family live in SoCal and are known as the West Coast Zoo.  It's a funny little family thing.  Don't know why.  Just is.). So anyway, it was going to be quiet.  We had scrumptious grilled Salmon, baby potatoes, and one of my wife's signature salads.  All good.  I decided to spend some time out in the hot tub, enjoy the view, and soothe away some of the pains of spending a few long days on the plane.  My wife was too tired so it was just me.  As usual, it was great...very relaxing.  Spent about 20 minutes out back which is about right.

And then it happened!  I was stepping out of the hot tub to get a towel, must have hit a wet spot on the slate patio, and went down...hard!  Very hard.  Through instinct I put my hand down to brace myself.  The good news is that I didn't hit my head, hip, or other part of my body.  But boy did I do a number on my left arm!!!  I looked down and it was badly deformed.  It had broken about an inch above my wrist.  And then it started to hurt...and not just a little bit!

So I go running in the house, sopping wet with a deformed arm and say (or maybe screamed) we need to get to the hospital. Oh yeah, about this time we discover I'm bleeding from the underside of my arm.  And it wasn't just a little bit.  We run upstairs, I struggle mightily to get into shorts, tee shirt, and flip flops.  It was the best I could do.  Luckily the weather here in So Cal wasn't too bad so I wasn't too cold.  We get back down to the garage for the ride to the hospital and the garage door opener is broken.  We knew that but had forgotten.  My wife had back surgery a few months ago and I have been doing all the heavy lifting around here.  So I get in the car and she lifts the door, backs the car out, and then lowers it.  It was very difficult for her.  Oh yeah, as I came raging into the house my wife was talking to our daughter so she knew about the fall, but no details.  So she naturally starts to worry.

Off we go to the hospital.  It's about a 12 mile drive but feels like 120.  We remembered to get some ice in a bag for the trip but it wasn't helping much.  Plus I was still bleeding and the only thing I had to wipe it with was the Red Sox tee shirt I was wearing.  It was a long, long ride.  We pulled in to Emergency about 9:00 pm on New Year's Eve.

When we walked in, expecting the worst, it really wasn't too crowded.  Walked up to the counter and the check in nurse said "it's a 4 hour wait".  Then I unwrapped the ice from my arm and he took one look and said "but you're going to be fast-tracked!".  So i got taken back to xray and on to a treatment room.  The P.A. was a real comedian.  He took one look at the xray and started chuckling.  I think I heard him say I did a real number on my arm.  But he was a nice guy.  Retired Army.  Lots of experiences and stories.  But my pain was increasing and I didn't see any action to give me something for it.  He said it was my lucky day because the Head of Orthopedics was on call and would be seeing me.  And literally everyone i talked to the rest of the night told me the same thing.

So the Doc came in a little while later, took a look at the xray and said the first thing he had to do was reduce the injury.  Now, I haven't spent a lot of time around doctors or hospitals (they are the natural enemies of Naval Aviators) but I thought I had heard the term before.  But just to be safe I asked what that meant.  So he said something like, "i pull on your elbow and the P.A. pulls on your hand until the bone pops back in place".  Another comedian!  But he actually did do that, after filling my lower arm with lidocaine, and it wasn't too bad.

But then he discovered that the break was so smooth that it wouldn't hold in position without inserting some pins.  And he was worried that the bleeding might be coming from another problem he couldn't see and wanted to thoroughly clean it to prevent infection.  This guy was very thorough...and very good!!  So now it's about 1:00 am and they wheel me over to the operating room.

These folks were very impressive.  Here it is 1:00 am on New Years Day, the surgical team had been called in, and you'd have thought it was just another routine procedure.  I'm a big fan of seeing professionals at their best, and that's what these folks were.  Of course, I didn't see much of it.  The Anesthesiologist was waiting for me and said he was going to give me a shot and I would be out.  He also was going to give me nerve block for my arm and it would be numb for 12-16 hours.  Huh?  Don't know how that works but it does.  My arm was like an unfeeling wet noodle for about 16 hours.  Amazing!  Anyway, he asked if I was ready and of course in my most manly voice said yes so he pushed the plunger...and I was gone.

Don't remember a thing until waking up a few hours later in recovery.  They took up to a very nice room overlooking the golf course where I stayed until about 1:00 pm and went home.  My wife had gone home about 5:00 am, got a few hours sleep and came back to get me (and brought better clothes than I arrived in).  Before I left the Doc came in to give me the low down (and he looked surprisingly refreshed!).  Turns out the Radius bone was not only completely severed, it had moved over and jammed the ulna.  That's what caused the puncture and bleeding.  Oh yeah...I also ripped the major muscle in my lower arm.  To repair the damage, he had to insert pins in the bones and then to insure stability he has some pins and a stabilizer bar on the outside connected to the pins on the inside.

Of course, I can't see any of this stuff because I've got a huge soft cast covering it all up.  And I've got to keep it on for 6 weeks.  And I have no idea when I can go back to work.  And I can't drive.  But I do have a little bottle of Percocet that keeps me relatively happy!

Lessons Learned?

• Slate is good looking stuff but can be slippery.  Will get a mat before we go back in.    
• There are some incredibly talented and dedicated professionals in the medical field.  I suspect that most know this, but having an experience like this really makes it hit home!  
• It sure is great to go through life with someone you love and who is there when the chips are down!  I took care of her after her back surgery, and she is helping me now.  
• People are fundamentally nice and caring.  I've had a ton of folks reach out to wish me well.
• Percocet is a good thing!  But not too much.  I couldn't get thru this without it, but I'm already reducing the amount i take.

So that was our New Year's Eve.  There will probably be some interesting days to come.  But nothing we can't handle.  As our Daughter used to say when she was a little kid and we'd ask her how something was, she'd say, "it was fun and hard...but not too hard".   Finally, I typed this with one hand, so give me a break!