Em had a cheer competition Jan 30 at Municpal Auditorium (downtown). Forecasters were calling for bad weather, snow and ice. Since we live so far from downtown, in rural Davidson County, I knew we'd never make to the Auditorium at the 8:30 arrival time without leaving the house around 7:00. And there is always the chance of not making if they close "the hill", which they have done before.
Em and I get a hotel room 2 blocks from the Auditorium at the Doubletree. We weren't the only family to do that, the Seals did the same thing. So we walked with them to the Spaghetti Factory Friday night and then early to bed. We got up early, when down for breakfast, got ready and packed our bags and started the 2 block walk to the Auditorium. It had snowed ALOT! The roads were covered, the sidewalks covered ..... everything covered and really pretty.
We get not even a full block from the hotel and I knew Em's feet were getting wet. The cheer shoes she has are held together with white tape since the sole is coming off. I see a metal grate up in front of us and my idea is to stop there and clean off her feet, knowing that heat comes up from the grates, I thought it would be warm. Little did I know that it was covered in ice. As soon as my waterproof boots hit that grate, I'm landing on my booty ... and snap goes my right wrist. I knew as soon as I landed that it was broke. I got up and calmly told Em we had to get to the Auditorium because I had broke my wrist. Poor thing had to carry the luggage and one other bag while I carried my purse and supported my wrist. We finally make it to the Auditorium and I found a police officer who takes me to the medic office. The police officer was nice and asked me questions about moving my fingers and tried to give me hope that it was just severely sprained. I knew different. But I kept a small sliver of hope. When I got to the medic office, she took office my glove and both she and the police officer agreed it was probably broke. The officer offered to take me to the ER, since I needed to go. Luckily though the Seals' were already at the Auditorium and while Em stayed with Mrs Seal, Mr Seal took me to Baptist ER.
I was really dreading going to the ER. I just knew it was going to be packed. I've never been to a ER that wasn't. To our surprise it was empty. They took me straight back. The Dr looked at it and said yep, it's probably broke, but we need xrays to see how bad.
Here's what it looked like at the ER:
So, I never called Steve, since he wasn't thrilled that the girls were performing anyways. And I really wanted to wait till I was calm again before I called. I was a little emotional. I did call my mom and tell her. I eventually called Steve and he and mom decided that my parents would go watch Em and Steve would come to the ER. He got neighbor Mike to bring him down since he can't drive yet because of his shoulder. I sent Mr. Seal back to the Auditorium because I didn't want him missing the girls (and he always take pictures). And then I sat by myself and had a little pity party. How could I be so stupid, how was I going to pay for this, why did it have to happen today. Then I got better. Made some calls and then they came in and took xrays, asked if I was sledding when I got hurt. Ha-ha ... wish I was doing something fun.
Dr. came back in and said yep, it was broke and I needed SURGERY!!! WHAT????? I couldn't believe it. They needed to put it in a temporary cast and I needed to call the orthopedic dr Monday morning and he thought he had time at 12:00 to do surgery!!!! OMG! Here's the xray:
See that little piece of bone sticking out, it's not suppose to do that! It's all suppose to be aligned.Right after they casted me Steve came in. The doctor got a kick out that since he was splinted on the left arm and me on the right. We drove home and I spent most of the weekend in terrible pain and sick from the pain and meds.
Monday morning I get up and call the Dr office. I go in at 9:30ish and he says yep, we need to place a plate and some screws in there to hold it all together. OMG! And we have you set for 1:15!
So instead of going home for 1 hour (and the road were still terrible). We went on over to the surgical center. It was an okay experience. I never got sick, never felt sick. Just sleepy. Steve kept me drugged! Here's what I woke up to:
I wore this for one week. It came off 2/8 and I got the pass to go back to work on 2/15! I now have a removable splint and I hate it, but I'm glad it's removable. I can almost completely use my hand to do everything, including type. It's still very stiff and it does hurt some. Especially after work since I guess I'm using it a lot. I can't pick anything up yet and I can't pull or push with it much. But it's on the mend. Here's what it looks like:
At first I was worried about my elbow because it was black and blue .... all on my elbow and up my arm. Some of it was probably settling, but my elbow is really sore, so I probably hit it when I fell too, but the ER dr checked it and since it wasn't painful when he touched it, he didn't think anything of it.It's been a long 2 weeks. But I glad that it happened when it did since Steve is still home recovering from his shoulder. And we actually made a pretty good team. Since I couldn't use my right arm and he could, we worked most things out. My parents feed us a couple days, went to the grocery for us and I had a couple of friends from work make us supper and we ate on it a couple nights. I really just learned how to do things differently and slower.
So no bow shooting for me for a while and I'm thinking that a wrist release isn't going to work for a while. But I think my this fall, I'll be okay.
