Last Sunday I broke my left ankle. My husband and I were grilling bratwurst and fresh pineapple on the barbecue. Tom said as he came from lighting the fire, “Be careful, the deck is slippery”. I wish I had paid attention. I put the pineapple skewers on the grill, came back across the deck, slipped on a wet leaf and went down. I landed on my butt with my left leg twisted under me.
When I tried to move my leg I discovered two things: It hurt like hell, and my ankle was flopping in unnatural directions. Tom tried to get me into the house, but the flopping and screaming convinced him to call 911 instead. A fire rescue truck and an ambulance soon showed up. Some nice young medics carefully got me onto a stretcher and on the way to the hospital.
Let me say that if you arrive in an ambulance, the ER will let you by-pass the waiting room. A nurse showed up pretty much right away to make sure I wasn’t dying and to take my medical history. It saves time if you have a list of your medications with you, but I spent some time explaining why in the last six months I had seen a dermatologist and plastic surgeon (skin cancer), a neurologist (ophthalmic migraines), an internal medicine doctor and a vascular doctor (cellulitis and swelling in my right leg). I sounded like a hypochondriac even to me, but the flopping ankle could not be ignored.
A portable x-ray machine showed up to take some pictures and I was told that my ankle was broken in at least two places. (Later x-rays showed three breaks.) The resident doctor said not to eat or drink, then ordered an oral pain medication. I took it with water. No one started an IV, probably just as well considering my uncooperative veins. I was shaking with cold and asked for a heated blanket. The nurse promptly produced two of them, bless her heart. I’d have given her more points if she’d thought of it herself.
There was talk of a shot of morphine, but it never materialized. An orthopedic doctor showed up to “put a splint” on my ankle. This seemed to involve dripping strips of plaster and a great deal of pain. You can’t put a splint on until the bones are maneuvered back into place, although this wasn’t mentioned by the doctor ahead of time. When I say a great deal of pain, I mean really real pain: having-a-baby pain, having-a-gall-bladder-attack pain, I’m-being-tortured-and-I’m-screaming-about-it pain. The splint did stop the flopping.
I was given a pain pill prescription, a pair of crutches, and a referral to an orthopedic surgeon, and sent home. The pain pills work well, the crutches are useless and I found my own orthopedic surgeon. The surgery is scheduled for Monday.
My husband is a saint. I can’t make it up and down the stairs, so he has fixed up the living room for my crippled self and is waiting on me hand and ankle.
This poem is a little dark, but seems to fit.
After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?
The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.
Emily Dickinson
