The Story of THE ACCIDENT

ok so it is a sleepless night for me and I have decided to recount the events of Friday March 19th.

We will start in the morning, I had gotten up on time for a change cause I was out to my mom's house in order to move a chair I had promised I would move for her the day prior but did not have a chance. Upon arriving I quickly get to work and gather a few things for the mission trip that left the following morning (the one I have been talking about and stressed out about), and had finally gotten to the last thing: the removal of this chair. Now understand this, this is not a large La-Z-Boy chair, nor an overstuffed wingback; rather this is a Homemedics therapeutic chair with massage and heat. This is a very nice chair, and it only weighs say 40-50 pounds (well within my lifting limit). I was carrying this chair down the steps and as I neared the bottom is when everything went wrong.

The events happened so fast it is hard to say what happened and in what order, but I do know I missed the next to last step in some way shape or form. This resulted in me sliding down the remaining steps, somewhere in there I know my foot/ankle popped. There was lots of pain but I did not understand the seriousness of my injury my eyes followed the line of my leg down to my foot, which was pointing 90 degrees to the right of where it is supposed to point.

God Bless cell phones. I was in my mom's old house remember, there were no phones, or even active phone lines for that matter. Had I not had my cell phone there is no telling what would have happened. I started to go into shock immediately from the mere sight of an appendage of my body doing something it shouldn't be doing. I gather myself and call 911 on my blessed cell phone. After I am forced to calm myself down in order for the operator to understand me, I relay all the information to her so that she can send the proper medical teams out. Andy Weems happens to call me almost immediately after I hang up, and so I tell him what has happened. I tell him "I am at my house" and he properly interprets it as the place I am currently living. I was too far out of my head to realize any other interpretations to what I said and Andy goes into fix it mode. I don't know what he thought he could do beyond that the paramedics could but I am flattered that he did try. I call my mom after I talk to Andy. I then get something like 12 calls on my cell phone between calling my mom and actually getting to the hospital. I did not answer any of them, I was far from being in the mood.

I am given all kinds of morphine in the ambulance and upon arriving at the hospital, and none of this is even numbing the pain. My sister to my surprise arrives at the hospital only minutes after I get into the Emergency Room. (Yay for her and Boo to her boss that made her take a half day vacation to do it) I have to go through x-rays and waiting on doctors with no relief for my pain, I even believe that the pain was getting worse. The doctors look at my x-rays and find that I have fractured my leg in 5 places, dislocated my ankle, as well as break it.

Finally, the man with the plan walks in, they are going to put me under conscious sedation in order to pop my ankle back into place. For some reason he decides he is going to do it right now, and not tell anyone else he is doing it. He simply grabs my toe and starts twisting my foot. I cannot even begin to describe the immense amounts of pain putting my ankle back into place cause me, I would even venture to say more than getting it out of place. Having those bones rub against one another and slide past the previous one and being able to feel each one is just so unbelievable. I have felt pain before, but this was a whole new game cause of the visual of it and the feeling of those bones grinding against one another. Now my foot is back to pointing forward, and 80% of the pain is gone too. My foot still hurts at this point but I am not writhing anymore.

I find out that surgery is being planned for me that same day, it seemed kind of sudden to me, but the other option was the following Wednesday and that is just no good. There were lots of people who came to visit me, and thank you very much for that I really do appreciate it. Surgery was actually real easy, and was actually shorter than the surgeon expected. I now have, from my understanding, at least one plate in my foot and couple of screws, one larger one to keep my ankle from moving from side to side. The larger one has to be removed in a later surgery.

They keep me overnight for observation. Everything is going wonderfully (more people came to visit that night and the following morning..yay for them too) and I have to try getting around the hospital on crutches. The crutches and I did not get along, they require too much balance and I felt like I was going to fall over at any moment. Since that was not an option, I get to take a less dignified form of transportation; a walker. Yes that's right I have my very own walker, as if people needed more ammo for old man jokes. I could have sworn it had a sticker on it that said "As Seen In Nursing Homes". I am joking of course, it has actually worked out to be pretty good for me, it requires less balance, and lots of upper body strength; both of which I have.

I am back at my mom's new house now recovering which may take as long as 8-12 weeks. I was startled by that number at first and still am. There have been so many thoughts running through my mind, I will have to blog about them later. As for now, I have a doctor's appointment in the afternoon, I really want him to have good news for me, in at least everything is going to plan and looks good. I am a bit afraid; this will be my first big outing out of the house since I got here on Saturday. There will be lots of walking/hobbling on this trip, more than maybe I have done all week, and it can be exhausting. But I will also get to look at my leg for the first time and get a new dressing on my wound, and that makes me happy. I have been blessed by the outpouring of support I have received from my friends. Some of you will be proud that I did not vomit nor cry a single tear during this whole incident, and even my sister cried when she walked in and saw my foot doing it's candy cane impression. I also have to admit I have cried a lot at missing this mission trip, it makes me so sad to think that I missed it. My friends out there on the field have been wonderful to keep me updated and to call me to keep my spirits up, gosh I love you guys. You have no idea how much it kills me to not go on that trip with you.

Now that I have typed all this, I am really hoping that it all makes sense to someone other than me. Boy is this sucker long too, well I needed to have a long one for this month. Thanks to everyone again, and please pray for me.