Here is a photo of the death trap. The five lovely models on the left are mine :)
I thought I would test out for my chidlets how this apparatus would work. No one else was on it, and I was trying to run up the left side of it. Hamster style.
Turns out that it moves much faster than my legs can race. I had this horrible feeling that my left foot was going back too fast and I was going to be doing the splits, so I quickly leaped off over the highest point of the circle (a whole foot and a half high) landing with my right foot in the worn track in the wood chips around it. Something about how I was running or how the track wouldn't let my foot move with the rotational forces caused my foot to twist....
Right off my leg. Well, within the skin anyway. I can be a bit dramatic! You are warned.
Eww factor is ginormous right here. I looked down and it appeared I was briefly standing on my tibia, with my foot medially perpendicular to my leg. I fell over onto my backside and thought about what to do next. This was a closed fracture. I don't know how my skin stretched so well.
I didn't really hear a pop or sound, just looked down and saw my horrifying leg. I knew instantaneously that it was very broken. My husband had suffered a tib/fib fracture a few years earlier, so I knew this wasn't going to be a mere cast situation.
I tried to stand up with the thought that I would hop on one leg to the van.
No way. It wasn't painful, just wrong to have gravity pull my foot away from my leg.
So I sat down, decided that I didn't like my foot that way and put it back where it should be and held it together with my hands. I am so happy I did that right then, when I was in shock. None of this hurt yet. My husband happened to be at the park with us that day and just picked me up while I held my foot and leg together.
We were minutes away from a hospital and got into the E.R. quickly. I had an I.V. and drugs probably within 20 minutes of it breaking, so I never really was in super pain. In fact, laying there in the E.R., I was in worse pain from a chronic neck injury, so the ankle wasn't too bad. I do remember being deeply in shock. I couldn't stop my body from shaking and my b.p. was too low for a regular dose of pain med, so I only had half a dose, which still worked well to control the pain. I was also very concerned because all five of my little kids were there with me and I was trying to be tough and laugh it off for the kids, which was a great distraction for me.
I didn't have to be moved much for my x-rays. Just a little up and down and turning a little and I had all ready fixed my own dislocation YAY! I have since watched videos of dislocations being fixed and am glad I missed out on that.
I was put in a splint and sent home with referrals to orthopedic surgeons. I was given .5 of Percocet and took them every 4 hours for the first 48 hours. I was able to sit with my leg up on the recliner and still homeschool my children, although I needed help with all the other household tasks.
I met with the surgeon the following day and scheduled the surgery for the following week to allow the swelling to go down. This break would require ORIF surgery. We also discussed performing a gastrocnemius slide at the same time, as I have very tight calves and tendons that can contribute to sprains.
In the meantime, while waiting for surgery, my mom was there to care for me and the children. I was able to go out in my splint to several stores and things on crutches and using a wheelchair. Because I was doing so well, I stopped taking Percocet after the first two days and nights as it made me feel nauseated and constipated. The side effects were worse than the pain, despite taking stool softeners.
I'd apologize for TMI, but I won't, because I don't think hospital staff adequately addresses that pain meds cause constipation and that you can actually prevent this from happening, as if you aren't miserable enough all ready! Don't let this happen to you!
One thing that I wish I could have changed is that when we went to the surgeon's, he cut through my splint in order to see my leg and ankle and then just wrapped the same splint up again with gauze and an ace bandage. I felt like the integrity of the splint was compromised and was constantly moving the splint around to find a comfortable place and it wasn't as firm or as molded to my leg as before. If I had it to do again, I would have requested a resplint.
My next entry will deal with what I wish I would have known prior to surgery and xrays of my ORIF procedure.
No comments:
Post a Comment