Sunday the 31st Betts and I went to the skating rink. Had our new skates that were meant for action and finesse… was going to be fun. Turned out that the rink was way too slick for my wheels, so I just sat and watched Betts do her thing. He was having fun and getting her old skills back. It was also Family Night, and since I hadn’t skated for 40 years I didn’t want to risk getting whiped out by kids zooming around whilst getting used to breaking in professional skates. (I was expecting a wooden rink, not a polished paint slab type).
We were about to leave some I headed to the ladies room hittting apiece of pizza lating in some til.Up in the air I went landing on my left hip. Blinding pain ensued and I couldn’t stand up. Leg was fine but it was if there was no support for my body. I was wheelchaired to the car and we headed back to New Orleans and home.
Halfway across the River I told Betts to take me to Tulane’s ER. I had a bad feeling that something major was wrong. Two hours later the verdict was I: I had two breaks in my hip bone. Surgery went down in the morning .A plate and three screws were holding it all together just below the part of the femur that fits into the pelvic socket. They said all looked good and they helped me go back to sleep.
Sometime afterward they changed my medications, ones that I had told them my my body reacted badly to. When I woke up treatment continued, but the chages weren’t told to me. My body started going hatwire and my mind turned into mush. I looked healthy when I entered the place but was turning into a zombie. That’ when Betts stepped in and forced them to change the meds back to what was originally agreed upon. Two days later I started to get back to normal. What should have been a three day stay turned into an eight day Hell.
I missed the Mayoral elections, Missed the build-up to the Super Bowl, but did come around enough to what our Saints win the game. The next day Betts got me out of there when we learned they were thinking of shipping me to Houston for Rehab. In those last two days I learned to use a walker properly allby myself. Figured out how to do Life things differently in order to function. I got home last night tired, but relieved..
I missed all the fun and joy of what turned out to be three of the best days our city has had since the Flood just because someone over-rode my knowledge of my body and my history of medication use. I know things happened, but I was outside looking in. Physically I couldn’t have been a part of the fun, but I was also prevented from emotionally enjoying any of it. The former is understandable, the latter is unforgivable.
The body will heal in time. My mind will slowly come out of the fog s. The denial of the joy of it all will never heal.
My condolences and sympathy re: the hip.
I broke my hip post-Katrina in Kenya. I was in the hospital there about a week while they set up my return flight. Hospital was fabulous–full body bed bath each day, food five times a day (the British heritage of tea.)
When I got back to Slidell I had the surgery.
And in December 2005 Slidell Memorial was a fourth world hospital on a good day.
When they put me in the rehab unit things perked up. The doc who runs it was an adult swimming student of mine.
But how about those Saints!!!
We had tickets to their first sseason, then spent eight years or so in Florida. We eventually got tickets again and now I get all sorts of attention from my grown kids. (My husband passed more than ten years ago.)
Best of everything with the hip recovery.
(Oh–I long ago learned to say “no amnesiacs” when surgery was mentioned.)
Comment by sue — February 10, 2010 @ 7:08 pm
Glad you are doing well with that injury Darlin’. I can’t imagine dealing with that pain for a week though (Not big on painkillers).
And our Saints did pick me up at the end of a horrible week.
Be Blessed.
Comment by Morwen Madrigal — February 11, 2010 @ 5:42 pm
Sorry to hear of your fall and subsequent misadventures in the “health care” industry. Similar experiences in the profit-based hospital system have made me reluctant to deal with doctors and hospitals unless absolutely necessary (admittedly not the best mindset to have, but the costs of even minor care are so outrageous that I have little trust in this broken system.) About a week after your skating accident, I fell from a ladder and broke a bone in my shoulder. The next 24 hours involved trips to UrgentCare and then the ER, with half a dozen X-rays and no definitive diagnosis- was it dislocated or not? The prescriptions for painkillers were the only thing I got that actually helped me through the first few excruciating days; in the end, I was left with my body’s ability to heal itself and pain as my innate guide to limit my activity. Folk medicine would have been as helpful! Maybe we need shamans who can write prescriptions- come to think of it, that may be about all we have now.
Comment by Lane — February 16, 2010 @ 8:53 am