This
is the blog post I intended to write last week but ran out of motivation. Four
years ago on March 1, I suffered my first broken bone. I was making last minute
preparations for hosting a Bible Study at my house and decided my tablecloth
needed to be shaken. I headed for the back door, stepped out on the concrete
step..the next thing I knew, I was sitting on icy concrete with a most
excruciating pain in my ankle. Almost as bad as the pain was the memory of the
internal crack I had heard as I fell.
I
painfully inched my way backwards through the door. Fortunately, it had not shut.( I
just now thought of that and shudder to think of how I might have frozen out on my
own back doorstep until Dean finally realized I was missing. That would have been hypothermia piled upon shock!)
Dean finally heard my feeble yelps from the laundry room and I convinced him to call
the ambulance as it hurt too much to hobble to the car. Once the EMTs
arrived and got my leg stabilized, the pain stopped. Of course, I have a
feeling that the prayers of my Bible Study group had a bearing on that.
The leg was x-rayed and casted at the ER and I saw the orthopedic surgeon at the
end of the week. After looking at the x-ray, her verdict was a spiral fracture.
That meant surgery with a plate and screws holding the bone in place and no
weight bearing on that ankle for six weeks. I can definitely state that
anesthesia is a great thing and having it wear off is not so wonderful. That was
one nasty pain. No doubt my friends who have had knee replacements would call
me a wimp, but each to his own pain level!
I
was not yet retired so I learned how to use a variety of wheeled aids to get around: office chair,
walker, and wheel chair. Heading for the restroom at the office was an
interesting procedure. I would “scoot” my desk chair to the office door,
retrieve my walker, hop to the wheelchair, climb in, fold up the walker on my
lap and wheel myself down the hall. Then unfold the walker, get out of the
chair, etc.
Since I am the
main cook in the household, we got to eat lots of fast food until my balance was
good enough to move around the kitchen easily.
It’s surprising how difficult it is to move pans off burners, open oven
doors and put in baking dishes, all while balancing on one leg. It can actually be a challenge to chop an
onion on a cutting board.
At
the end of six weeks, the long screw was removed from the
fracture so I could begin putting weight on that ankle. I opted to have it done
with a local anesthetic. Not a good idea, particularly since an emergency occurred at the doctor’s office where the procedure was being done and the Lydocaine
wore off before she could finish. The second shot wasn’t pleasant and getting sewn up was DEFINTELY the worst
part. I wish I could find that long screw—it was really impressive—I would say
two inches in length, but of course, things like that grow in your memory--sort of like the fish that got away..
The
remaining hardware I carried around in my ankle are pictured here and were removed a year later. The doctor
suggested I might want to make a wind chime out of the plate and screws but I
haven’t yet managed to get that written on
Dean’s honey-do list.
I
hope not to repeat any bone-breaking activities, but the healing of an “old
bone” like mine is a very real testimony of the healing power God has built
into our bodies. A friend and I were discussing how we take the normal function
of our body parts so for granted—until we break an ankle or wrist, or need a
knee or shoulder replaced.
One thing about it: if you like to shop, breaking a leg will help curb that desire
quickly.L
No comments:
Post a Comment