The next 24 hours were a bit hazy for me. The morphine kicked in, and while it doesn't really make the pain go away, it makes your brain all fuzzy and woozy, so you don't really care as much. I remember them loading me back into an ambulance, because I remember the smell of exhaust in the loading area. There were several ambulances all idling there and the smell was overpowering, and I started to gag.
The next thing I remember was a whole group of people lifting me from the stretcher directly to an xray table, where they took a lot more xrays.
Then, I faded off and in the surreal world of morphine, I dreamed I had died. I heard a voice call my name, and I saw a face, surrounded by light talking to me. I asked if he was an angel, and he replied that he was a doctor.
He told me that the good news was that he was going to save my leg, and that I would probably walk again. The bad news was that it was going to take a long, long time. I had a very serious injury. He went on to describe in great detail, the extent of my injury and the steps necessary to fix it. I listened for a while, then asked him if he would mind writing it all down, because I wanted my wife to hear all this, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't remember. He asked me where my wife was, and I told him she was at home, but that she would be here in the morning. He told me he would come back and explain everything to her too.
I remember some sketchy details over the next 24 hours. They moved me to a room, to await surgery in the morning.
Somewhere between then and morning, I started getting blisters all along my leg. The nurse explained that they were fracture blisters. When you suffer trauma, and have swelling, that swelling is caused by fluid building up in that part of your body. I was actually building up so much fluid in this leg, that it was bursting through the skin in golf ball sized blisters, that would fill up and burst. The staff was busy all night wiping my leg down repeatedly with cold cloths and trying to ease the discomfort.
I was scheduled for surgery on my leg in the morning, but that was not going to happen the way they had planned.
Before they got me to the operating room, I developed what is known as compartment syndrome. Essentially this is severe, extreme swelling, as a result of trauma. My leg was so swollen that not only could they not do the surgery as planned, but they actually had to make a long cut down the side of my leg, to keep it from splitting open. (Think Ball Park Franks).
The surgeon explained to me that they could not do the surgery until the swelling had gone down, so instead the took several long metal rods and used them to splint my leg, by driving long metal pins through the rods and into the bone. I still have big divots where each of those pins was placed, and those sites still cause me a great deal of pain, but I digress.
So, to make a long story a little less long, it was quite some time before they could do the surgery to install the plates and screws and rods, and widgets, and hinges, and cotter pins and bolts and whatever else they stuck in my leg to hold it all together again.
Once they had completed that surgery, and made sure I was stable, they transferred me to a hospital closer to home.
On a side note, although it sounds like it would be fun, I do not recommend the back of an ambulance, while strapped to a gurney, with your leg in a metal brace, elevated above your waist, in excruciating pain, without the benefit of morphine, on icy roads, during a winter storm, as the ideal means of transportation for those wishing to travel from Grand Rapids Michigan to the Downriver area.
I do, however strongly recommend Butterworth Hospital, in Grand Rapids, should anyone be looking for a good hospital to stay a while.
I didn't realize how good I had it there, until I got to Henry Ford Hospital in Wyandotte.
Now, don't get me wrong. Henry Ford is a fine hospital. But while Butterworth is new, sleek and state of the art, Henry Ford is older, runs on a lower budget, and generally caters to a different clientele.
In any event, I was tired of hospital life and wanted to go home. Once the insurance company learned that Diann worked from home, so would be there to take care of me, so they would not have to hire a home aid, they were especially interested in sending me home as well, so I made it home before Christmas.
Now, taking care of someone who can't stand without help, cannot walk at all, requires a wheelchair to go anywhere, and is in a constant state of pain and drug induced stupor is a lot more work that one may assume.
I know it sounds easy, lifting me around, heaving my wheelchair in and out of our truck, carrying, bending, lifting, pulling, and pushing my wheelchair on icy sidewalks. But it actually wasn't.
Shortly after I was discharged, Diann was lifting my heavy duty wheelchair into the truck, and tore an abdominal muscle.
She had some serious back issues anyway, and this exacerbated those. She tore a ligament in her knee, we still aren't exactly sure how.
She did all this while working 40 hours a week, running our home, keeping everything clean and orderly for the endless chain of case workers, home care workers, therapists, and well wishers who popped in and out on a regular basis.
She would get up in time to help me get washed up and ready for the first workers who usually showed up around 9 am. Then she alternated between doing her work, and being a full time home care worker, until about 9:00 pm. Then she would work another 3-4 hours and go to bed well after midnight, so she could do it all again the next day.
Sometime mid February, we finally got a home care worker approved to come in and help with some of the basics. By that time Diann had already hurt herself several different ways.
So now, we have two separate people injured as a result of this accident.
Now how much would you pay??
But wait! There's more!
Watch this space for continuing chapters of The Saga Of Troy.....
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