Broken leg

On January 11, 2005 I was moving Lucy’s power wheelchair into position for her. When I stepped off I got my foot entangled in the footrest and twisted my leg as I went down to the floor in our bedroom. I heard a crunch as I went down and knew I had broken my leg. I broke out into a sweat and was breathing fast. I was apparently going into shock. I stayed conscious though and told Lucy I broke my leg. She suggested getting up and trying to stand. Just a small movement confirmed my suspicions and I stayed where I was. No way was I going to stand up. I had my cellphone in my pocket and called 911 and stayed on the floor, head halfway under the computer table. As long as I didn’t move I was comfortable.

The firehouse is only a half mile up the road and they were here in short order. One of the paramedics tried to step over part of me and accidentally hit me in the foot. Ow! He apologized profusely.

They bound my leg in a splint and lifted me onto their carrier and took me out to the hospital. In the ER they took an x-ray and found it to be a spiral fracture involving both bones (tibia and fibula) halfway between the knee and ankle. The ER physician explained that they may put in a rod or some pins to put the bones together. They bound my leg tightly in a temporary splint again. As I waited in the ER I called a few people and as I was on the phone with Lucy I suddenly felt a cramp coming on. Oh no! A cramp in a broken leg!? Yow! It felt like a vise and as it grew more intense I panicked. “Help…Help!” A nurse was just outside the door and wandered in slowly at my call. There was nothing she could do about it—and then I heard a loud crack, and the cramp slowly subsided. So, what happened? Later I told the surgeon, Dr. Viau, what happened.

A complicating factor was the rash on that same leg—cellulitis and/or dermatitis. They saw the need to take care of that first—surgery would have to wait. They gave me antibiotics for 3 days before taking me to surgery to set the leg.

In surgery they put me under anesthesia so I never knew what they did to me, until the doctor told me. I don’t remember going to sleep. All I knew when I woke up was that I was in a different room and my leg was in a cast almost from hip to ankle. Dr. Viau told me that when he x-rayed my leg again everything was back in place. He didn’t have to do any surgery, he only needed to put my leg in a cast.

To further complicate matters, I was also on kidney dialysis. They took care of that at the hospital but now that I would be going home, how am I going to handle it? It is costly using ambulance service for the trips to and from dialysis three times a week. The decision was made to send me to Oak Grove Convalescent Center. Insurance would pay for the trips to dialysis. I was there about a week and soon got tired of it. I just needed to go home and maybe have someone take me to dialysis.

Meanwhile, Lucy phoned the radio program Market Place on WMAN and broadcast the need for a driver for a dialysis patient three times a week. There were four responses. I picked one and signed myself out to go home. For about two or three weeks I used the services of a gentleman who picked me up at home, took me to dialysis, went to his home to wait for my call, and took me back home. It was a routine that helped me realize that I could drive myself to dialysis, now that everything felt like it was healing nicely. One day I told him I wouldn't need his service anymore. I was now on my own.

With a full cast, I needed to be careful putting myself in the driver's seat but with an automatic transmission there is no need to use the left foot so it worked out OK. The doctor changed the cast after about six weeks and I continued with a half-cast for several more weeks. I continued on crutches but was able to put more weight on my leg and finally the cast was taken off.

It was then that I found out that I couldn't walk very well because of the pain in my left hip, so ever since then I have resorted to continuing with one crutch. Perhaps I could use a cane but I have so much more control with a crutch. Among other things, I can probably blame it on the fall down the silo chute, which I wrote about yesterday.