A Life of Words

Doggone it!!!

I’m writing to you from the caregiving halls of Methodist Mansfield hospital, where I’ve been encamped since some nice paramedics brought me here about 4 a.m. Friday.

You all know how long-winded I am, so I’m sorry in advance. But I’ll quickly get to what we called the nut graf in my former life as a newspaper journalist.

In the middle of the night, I fell and broke my right femur (thigh bone) just below the ball-and-socket hip joint. Just after 11 a.m. Friday, I had surgery to have a rod and screws inserted to repair it. Now my body will have to do its own repairs.

How did I manage this falling feat? Well, that’s where the “doggone it” part comes in. Our new puppy Win-Win, who’s been sleeping in a crate by our bed, started whining about 3 a.m., and we’ve found early on that sometimes (but not always) that means she needs to go outside. So I opened her crate and she ran into the living room, where Kay and our 19-year-old Alex couldn’t sleep and were sitting on the couch.

I didn’t turn on a light (HUGE mistake, but I didn’t want to blind them) and went to get Win, who was by the couch. Cradling her by my chest with both arms, I started walking toward the back door.

We never made it. I hit the edge of the recliner hard with my leg, and down Win and I went to the laminate floor. In that split-sec, I must have thought I needed to fall to the right or I’d fall directly on top of Win. And since I was holding her with nothing to break my fall, I came straight down on my right side and the hip/femur area.

As I writhed and moaned in pain, I didn’t know what happened to Win but thankfully she was OK. I thought I had further screwed up my low back, which I’ve had troubles with for about 30 years. Kay says I blacked out for a couple minutes just after that, even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t hit my head, and next thing I knew, she was on the phone with 911. I told her I’d be ok and we didn’t need them to come. (Silly me.) The guys gave me fentanyl for the pain, gently picked me up and, as I yelled with every movement, got me onto a gurney and into the ambulance.

At 63, it was my first ride to a hospital the official (and expensive) way. Kay and Alex met me there and ended up staying at the hospital 14 hours that day. I love them so much for that.

Josh, the paramedic who tended to me and even talked baseball with me on the way to the hospital, told me he figured I had a broken hip, which I hadn’t even considered. After X-rays at the ER, the doc who came in said I was indeed “broke” (little does he know!). But I figured, like the paramedics, he meant my hip.

I was scheduled for surgery at 1 p.m., then moved up to 11ish, and we met Dr. Brigham Au, the surgeon who’d be operating on me. It was he who told us I didn’t have a broken hip but a broken femur — an intertrochantery femur fracture, to be technically precise.

Since the surgery, I’ve been waiting for the nerve block the anesthesiologist gave me to wear off. It was supposed to last 12 hours, but 33 hours later it’s just starting to do so. It was supposed to help ease the post-surgery pain, but all I’ve had is a numb leg with zero sensation from just below the surgical sites (two incisions on the side of my upper leg) to my foot. In other words, it hasn’t helped diddly with my pain.

This image shows the rod and screws Dr. Brigham Au put in my right femur. You really can’t see the break, but it starts at upper left and runs down under the ball and socket hip joint.

Today with therapists in 2 sessions, I walked (very slowly) around my room with a walker, gutting through the pain. I got some morphine with my morning meds, but that had long since worn off by the time the therapists arrived late in the afternoon.

Of course I’ve been overthinking the whole freak mishap. If I’d picked up Win when she walked out of her crate, none of this would’ve happened because I would’ve had a clearer, straighter path to the door. Or I could’ve waited for her to go through the doggie window, which she quickly learned to do. But she’s been having some accidents, so I wanted to get her outside as quickly as possible. And sometimes stuff just happens, right?

To add some needed levity: I was supposed to take Win to the vet Friday morning because she’s had (sorry, TMI) diarrhea since we brought her home. After she and I fell, I saw some brown stuff splattered on my T-shirt and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Later at the hospital, Kay and I realized it was Win’s 💩. So she and I falling had literally scared the poop out of her! 😂 We are so fortunate she was not also hurt.

With any luck, I’ll be going home Sunday. If not, Monday. Next week, I’ll start about 4 months of outpatient therapy. It won’t be fun, but the gain resulting from the pain will be worth it in the long run … not that I plan to do any running, soon or in the future!! 😝

In this photo of sweet little Win-Win, taken the day we brought her home last Saturday, the recliner that tripped me up is behind her. Bad chair!! 😅