I began to feel energetic after falling, breaking my leg and wrist – just in time for the surgeon to declare I needed major surgery to remove the temporary fix of my leg. “It will take three and a half hours to permanently fix the broken pieces of the leg with plates and pins and to put a plate in the wrist,” he said.
I felt pretty good going into the hospital. I knew I would feel a lot worse before nightfall.
Don’t ask me about my surgery. I have no clue. I only know that the doctor’s insurance liaison had to get approval for the surgery. Insurance termed the operation elective and deemed it an out patient procedure.
Elective? Who would choose to leave a small bridge of titanium on their leg rather than have the leg repaired?
Outpatient? As in get up in the wee hours of the morning, skip breakfast, go under the knife for four hours and anesthesia then go home in the afternoon to recuperate? I could not believe it. I called the office.
The doctor’s nurse assured me, I would be admitted to the hospital right after surgery. “It’s just what we have to do to get approval from the insurance company.
Relieved, I did as told, quit eating before midnight, wheeled into a medical taxi in the dark before dawn, to check in at 5:30 a.m. I quit counting the number of times I told one member of medical staff after another, “No, I have not even had a sip of water since before midnight.”
Finally they believed me, had all the other information they wanted, weighed me and rolled my bed to surgery. Four hours later I emerged from the delightful state of bliss to the confusion of pain and the tight restrictions of a leg cast from the top of my thigh to the bottom of my foot and another tightly wrapped splint cast that again barely left me enough room to wiggle my fingers.
I spent my first day floating in and out of sleep and punching the button for morphine. I definitely began waking up when staff began talking about sending me home 48 hours after surgery.
It felt like a 50-pound tree stump attached to my hip. The post surgery weigh-in said I had only gained 12 pounds. I could not stand, roll over or even use the walker.
“What about going to re-hab? I need some ideas for living with this injury when I get home”
“You can do that …. if the insurance company approves. It might be difficult to get approval this close to the weekend.” I prayed for approval.
At 5 p.m. Friday, I slowly eased into a wheelchair, took the elevator down a couple floors and entered rehabilitation.
With only one session each on Saturday and Sunday, I simply learned tricks and tips for moving the wheelchair by myself with only my right leg and arm. (I am not allowed to put weight on the wrist or the leg.)
“Use your foot as a rudder to direct the chair.”
Monday, I went for a longer roll down the halls, “Let’s see how you go through these heavy doors without having the door closing on you.” I studied it a while. Tried a couple ideas and finally backed through the door, using the chair’s handles to tackle the door.
“So how do you get something from the back of the refrigerator? You should not lean over in any direction or you could tip out of your chair.”
I reached for the grabber and approached the fridge with the sign “for patients only,” lined up my chair and opened the door. I found a treasure trove of snacks, a few boxed lunches, juices, drinks, puddings and Jell-O. I knew what I wanted, but the only item deep in the fridge were little cans of prune juice. I dutifully extended the grabber, clamped around one and pulled it out. I did not want one, so I returned it with the grabber. Secretly I made plans for a midnight raid of the fridge without the company of the all seeing eyes of the staff.
The occupational therapist wanted me to practice manipulating the wheel chair in tight spots. She placed 10 colorful rings around the room. I wove my way around other patients, picking up rings and putting them around my arm cast.
“You will have to wait to pick up the the ring on the exercise mat, until the patient is finished. I promise you, he was not there when I dropped the ring there.”
The 10th ring eluded me. Using my foot as propeller and rudder. I wheeled around the room twice looking for the ring, I found it looped over the handle of a machine with a rolling stool in my way.
“Consider that as a chair in your way at home. What would you do?” the therapist asked.
“Not a thing. At my house the chairs are all too heavy to move,” I thought. Nonetheless, I shoved it aside and grabbed ring number 10. Game over.
“Now let’s see you walk using the walker.” After a lengthy tour of the hospital halls in the chair, my hip felt ground to the bone. I did it anyway. Slide the leg cast, move the walker forward, hop, repeat. Exhausting.
“What are your goals?”
“Building strength and improving balance.”
Well then more of the same and then some tomorrow,” she promised. “See you then.”
I sighed. I want the insight and direction of physical therapists. I look forward to the cycle of feeling better, just to go to therapy to feel worn out and exhausted. Still, I’ll take that any day over a lifetime in bed. This is an elective activity. I know it and I choose the pain,the exhaustion and the discomfort for the gain.