Well, here it is. THE WHOLE STORY.
I’m walking AbventureGirl from my car to the movie theater. Between my car and the theater entrance is a curb. Not one of those smooth ones, but the ones with the 90-degree angle.
I got that spastic gait ‘member? So I'm going to step over the curb with my right foot, which is my more spastic side, and I lose my balance. I go to correct my balance with my better side, my left side. This results in me not getting my foot high enough in the moment to clear the curb. There's a small twisting motion, which results in a spiral fracture of my fibula approximately 5 centimeters above the ankle (spiral fracture of the distal Tibia). Due to that twisting motion I mentioned I also fractured the posterior, or backside, of my fibula on the same leg (posterior fracture of the proximal fibula). Tibia is the main bone-or shinbone-of your leg, fibula is the kickstand type bone that runs adjacent to and outside of-lateral to-your shinbone. This is the first time in my life I’ve broken a bone. So I went big! I broke two!
I have often told AbventureGirl, Momma never does anything half-ass. She always does everything whole-ass. Breaking bones is no exception I suppose.
For this next bit, Imma say “I” but picture myself, my mom/rock, and AbventureGirl as the “I” unit.
First, AbventureGirl called my mom from the movie theater curb to ask her to come fetch us and take her and I to the nearest ER. Mom/rock taking us was cheaper and faster than an ambulance. Then, I sit in the lobby of the Sacramento ER for about two hours waiting. I get called back and they do a preliminary triage thing and I’m sent back for an X-ray. THAT HAD TO BE THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE THING I’VE DONE IN MAH LIFE. Even more discomfort than the actual bone breaking. I told the Xray tech, “I can’t move that limb, so I’m counting on you to help me. I may yell a bit, but it’s at the pain not you.” She did the work and gave me some very diagnostic and beautiful images. I’m told to head back out to the lobby to wait for the doctor to read the X-ray.
About an hour and a half later, and after my mom/rock reminds the front counter guy that we’re still waiting. They move me to wait some more in a new location. I play the alphabet car travel game trying to find words that begin with each letter of the alphabet in alphabetical order with the signs around me. I got to P before I was interrupted.
I would like to notify all readers that the ER in real life is NOT the ER you see in movies or TV shows. I expected doctors to come rushing in snap my leg back into place then throw a hard cast on and send me on my way.
The ER technician puts my broken leg in a splint. With its wet noodle, dangling, floppy bottom half and everything. This splint included hard fiberglass on the bottom of my foot, keeping it at a 90 degree angle. Two fiberglass boards to support both sides of my leg. It had a lot of padding. And a lot of ace wrap around it all. The ER doctor tells me I get a walker, not crutches cause they're dangerous for me because of the gait. Then they give me two prescriptions to pick up at the pharmacy. Finally, I’m told to call the orthopedist on Monday morning.
Meanwhile, we’re all tired, starving, and getting cranky.
So I go pick up the two meds the ER gives me prescriptions for. I go home, look at the meds for instructions and there are none. I checked the discharge paperwork. Still no instructions on taking these medications. The thing that really gets me is that one of these medications is Norco, an opioid. Now given my training and the profession that I'm aiming for (ultrasound, right) I am keenly aware of the opioid epidemic that society is currently experiencing. I am extremely apprehensive about taking these pills without proper instruction, or without any instruction for that matter.
Annoyed, confused, and scared, I go to urgent care the next day. I meet the superhero of doctors. He lets me see my X-ray. Superhero doctor even called it an “impressive” break. Then he follows it up with “But you don't wanna be impressive when it comes to breaks.” He does conclude though that it's a fairly clean break, as in-it's not shattered to bits so it is reparable. He asked if I was there so I could be referred to orthopedics. In my trust and ignorance I tell Superhero doctor, no the ER doctor told me to call them Monday morning so they must have referred me already. Or something to that extent. Superhero doctor tells me the right way to take the two meds. Calming my anxious spirit around the opioid, he informs me that it’s only for use “break through” pain. This is to say it is only for pain that breaks through the heavy duty, horse pill size definitely NOT over the counter Advil that I was prescribed.
Monday morning I call the orthopedics hospitalist using the phone number on my ER discharge paper work. The hospitalist tells me to call my GP. Okay, whatever man. Either you’re not taking responsibility for your job or the person before you gave me bad information. I call the GP and she confirms that an order was placed for orthopedics and gives me the number. I call the orthopedics office and inquire.
Oh, we don’t do trauma orthopedics in Sacramento, that’s a Carmichael thing. That office is at this phone number XXX-XXXX.
The scheduler is all, What day did you go to the ER? I was at the Sacramento ER on Friday. Okay, that would mean Doctor So-and-So was on duty. I’ll have him review your X-ray and give you a call back later this morning.
Tick-tock goes the clock all the way to 3:00pm. I call the scheduler back. What the double heckers man? I’m sitting here with a broken leg waiting for you to call me back later in the morning. It’s now well into the PM. What’s the plan?
Well we need a referral to our office specifically, not just orthopedics.
I call GP back and let her know I need a referral to trauma orthopedics in Carmichael specifically. Let me explain it to you like you’re five, right? I pretended that the person I was speaking to needed a five year old’s explanation for why the previous referral wasn’t cutting it.
Tuesday: Hello ER My Old Friend
The next day (leg bone is still wiggling around freely in a janky ER splint. I CAN FEEEEEEL it. Gross)
A new girl at trauma orthopedics gets a hold of my file with my diagnostic, beautiful X-rays. She is perhaps the most helpful person, second to Superhero Doctor from urgent care.
I showed your X-ray to Dr. So-and-So. He says you definitely need surgery. Thing is, our referrals only come from Roseville ER, not Sacramento ER. So here’s the plan, honey. Check yourself into Roseville ER. Tell them you’re in excruciating pain because you broke your leg last week. Get admitted, and your case will be forwarded to Dr. So-and-So so you can have the surgery we already know you need.
FINA-fricking-LY. Some progress.
We check into that ER within 45 minutes. It was a further drive but I was gung-ho for something productive, so we were movin’ and a groovin’.
Let’s start with this: the check in differences between the Sacramento ER and the Roseville ER were vast and definite. The number of people in the ER was drastically lower. Friday night at 7:30pm versus Tuesday afternoon at 4:00pm. Don’t get hurt on a weekend night. Like the movie theater, ERs are significantly busier at those times. Also, the demographic of people at the ER was different, too. The Sacramento ER had a lot of inebriated people. In Roseville it was mostly middle aged and elderly patients checking in.
Wait time to be seen was about a tenth of the time. I’m not even exaggerating. Where I waited in the Sacramento ER on Friday for two hours before I was seen, I waited in the Roseville ER for twelve minutes to be sent to my private room for admission and vitals. Private ER Room
In the private room a very nice girl pulled up my X-rays from Friday, took a look at my splint and sad, “That’s NOT gonna work.” Turns out the Sacramento ER splint wasn’t even supporting the proximal posterior break of my fibula. But rather, it was actually lined up right where the break was, leading to potential for it to actually make it worse than the initial impact with the curb the previous week. SUPER awesome right? So the very nice girl of the Roseville ER cautiously removed the splint-the whole time she was being careful to limit my pain as much as possible-she narrated what she was seeing. Apparently, that splint was janky as could be and insufficient and all kinds of bad. She gets me set up with a very different splint which encapsulates both of my breaks and provided me a notable sense of support which the previous one did not.
A couple of hours later, the night shift comes in, shift change happens, and I’m told that a permanent room up on the second floor is available. So they move me to it!
Well, kinda. I guess they move me to the hallway outside of it at first. Because the transporter chica gets us to the room, looks inside, and goes, “Hey, this room hasn’t been cleaned yet.” So transporter chica gets the appropriate people to come clear out everything from the previous patient, gets clean sheets and things put on the bed, and gets the room registered to my name and barcode on my wrist band. Meanwhile, out in the hallway, I spent the next half hour with the intake nurse. We talked about my needs and the potential schedule for the next few days, including but not limited to surgery.
Something that ended up becoming a whole thing was my tiny bottle of medications. I put all of the pills I take on a daily basis in an empty pill bottle. This, apparently, is super concerning to hospitals because even though you can identify pills by using the markings on them and a pharmacy book, they don’t trust it. Suffice it to say that I had to wait THREE days to be allowed to take my DAILY prescription medications. Being hospitalized can be uncomfortable for your health.
Remember from the previous incident adjacent section how I had stopped taking Norco because it’s a opioid and super hero urgent care doctor was all, “yeah, don’t take that unless you have break through pain”?
Well, the upstairs of the ER decided that they were gonna give me only intravenous Norco for pain. I inform the intake nurse what I was told and that Advil had been doing a bang up job of controlling my pain so I’d rather stick with that. She’s all No, we’re here to manage your pain and we’re gonna do that with Norco.
So much for informed consent in patient care, right?
Turns out I have a reaction to Norco and I literally can’t have it. So, eventually they listen to me and stop pumping me full of Norco. They stick with the entirely sufficient Advil. I don’t say it aloud, but I told ya so.
Wednesday: You Wait Until I’m NPO?!
By the third day in Roseville I’m
C) My broken leg is making me so mad
Props to my bestie, FWEND, though, because if it wasn’t for him keeping me company all day via the phone I would have legit lost my mind. He let me bother him all day while he was working, and even on his day off when he was busy taking care of errands he let me interrupt him. He’s the best of friends, FWEND.
Around 10:00 pm I’m told that I get to have surgery tomorrow and get a titanium rod put in my leg and my bone will stop being all wet-noodle-like. YAY! Then at about 11:30 pm a nurse comes to me and says, we need a urine sample to make sure you’re not pregnant before surgery tomorrow. I’m like, “I was eating and drinking ALL DAY TODAY and you could have asked me for it then, but you waited until I’m have to be NPO, nil per os (Nothing enters your mouth, drinks or food) to ask me to PEE IN A CUP FOR YOU?! Do I really have to explain to you why that is not going to work?
The night shift nurses got me hooked up to an IV for hydration purposes and we got the urine sample taken care of. But seriously? Plan better, ya know what I mean?!
Thursday: Wolverine Leg & allergies
Thursday morning I got my titanium rod installed. My leg got an upgrade. From broken to not only NOT broken but TITANIUM. My surgeon, who is a really super awesome human in addition to a great surgeon, told me that I may have a mild skin allergy to the iodine surgery prep solution that they used on my leg. But I have allergies to a lot of hospital grade skin products anyway, including even tegaderm. Tegaderm is the sticky seal used to cover iv insert sites. I have to use an alternate for all of my infusions and such. I got labelled with an allergy tag on my wristband when I was admitted. When I get to surgery I’m told that I will spend one last night in the hospital before discharge the next day. However, DESPITE being labeled with what was supposed to be an obvious red flag symbol for an allergy, I had to remind every doctor and nurse that I have an allergy, what that allergy is, and how to work around it.
Guess who visited me the day before I leave the hospital? The food allergy specialist from the cafeteria. She’s all, do you have any food restrictions? Allerigies? Needs?
Girl, it’s a good thing I freaking don’t, because you’ve come to me on MY LAST DAY.
Guess who else comes to visit! Best FWEND comes to visit me while my mom/rock is there. He really is the best. He left when I called AbventureGirl to do math homework with her. But he was there cheering me up after I had a construction team of surgeons installing titanium to take the place of bone marrow in my tibia.
Friday: I fall at home because there’s stuff on the floor being all tripping hazard-like. That’s gonna be a bruise. A bruise developed two days later.
Saturday: Leaking Leg, Super-hero Doctor TimeThis is gonna be our thing, isn’t it?I just keep bumping into him whenever I have questions about another doctor’s work and they don’t make themselves available to answer said questions.
Sunday: Indian Story I help Abventuregirl write a story for her social studies class. Over the phone and in Google Classroom. Broken legs won’t stop me from Momming!
Monday: Getting things settled into being stuck at home.
Tuesday: Things are settled, now looking for things to do.
Wednesday: The things are now done, so I reach out to work to see if I can do anything from home.
Thursday: I can’t do anything from home so I am stuck watching tv and eating snacks.
Friday: I’m all caught up on my shows and bored.
Saturday: HOME PT. Intake for home physical therapy was done with a therapist who usually doesn’t serve the area I’m in. But she ended up being a girl I went to high school with so that was pretty freaking cool.
Sunday: Kamala Harris I help Abventuregirl with another social studies research paper and assignment. This time in person though, because weekend.
Monday: HOME PT I meet the therapist who is gonna be the therapist I work with for the rest of my referral. She’s epic, and lovely, and pushes me just enough to do the best work. For physical therapy, work life, and family life. She’s become my hype girl.
Tuesday: I meet with Nurse Cleo who gets permission from my surgeon’s office to remove stiches/staples the next eeks. Then I had a video visit with my GP, get EDD advice from her and Doctor Walks Hie Cat, and new Rx (non-opioid) for increased management for PT days.
Let’s pick up the pace for you, my dear readers. Because essentially this just becomes a lot of lather-rinse-repeat. Too much of being trapped at home, a lot of reaching out to support AbventureGirl as she struggles with minimal support from Useless Sack of Flesh, and a little of losing my mind. Being house bound is very hard. The pandemic was a HUGE struggle for me.
Let me sum things up, finally
Here Aurora is, two months after the initial leg breaking, doing physical therapy with my hype girl twice a week and on my own every other day. Word from the professional is that I am getting so strong! I finally have clearance to drive from the surgeon’s office to do “activities as tolerated” so I can run my own errands. Which is a really big deal. I was collecting this to-do list and it was doing nothing but growing and growing and I was actively losing it. My therapist was like, let’s get you grounded, and worked with me to get resources so that I don’t each clinical levels of diagnoses.
I have been doing all kinds of things, now, some from home and some of getting things done out in the wild. You know, cautiously.
I can’t wait to get back to work, though. I miss having a set schedule (I’m a creature of habit), I miss the interaction with good people like FWEND, I miss the income (an adult be having bills, okay?). But surgeon says the in order to let my leg heal the best and not to overdo it (I am an overachiever so even my hype girl says I have to cool it often) So even the company site manager told me to follow the doctor’s orders and not to come back until he gives me official clearance.
I anticipate some big changes coming, though, so I’ll do my best to keep you posted.
Surviving Susac (and broken legs),
