Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Oh right, it's one foot in front of the other

'On Saturday, I forgot how to walk down stairs.

You see, a friend invited me to go to Wonderland with her and her daughters. We were staying with her sister-in-law, and we got in around 11:30 on Friday night. Everyone was asleep, so we went to bed ourselves. In the morning, I got up, took a shower, meet the sister-in-law for the first time, and then fell down the stairs.

I knew immediately that I was hurt pretty bad, and it became obvious very quickly that my ankle was broken. My friend applied ice and a splint, and then we figured out that we needed to call an ambulance. The paramedics arrived, splinted it properly, and then carried me out to the ambulance.

Incidentally, it's weird to be in a moving vehicle while lying down. 

I got to the hospital and they transferred me to a bed there. I had X-rays, and they discovered that my ankle was dislocated and broken in three places. 

They put me under to realign it, then put a temporary cast on it. It felt much, much better after it was no longer dislocated, although it was obviously not great. 

In the meantime, my friend's daughters and their cousins were at Wonderland. Around 6, it became obvious that surgery was not going to happen, and the surgeon gave me three choices: transfer to another hospital for the night, then have surgery in the morning; go home for the night and come back to the Ajax hospital for surgery, or go back to Ottawa. We decided to go back to Ottawa, so we called the girls and asked them to come back. (My friend's brother had taken my car, so we needed the car, too.)

We left around 9 and had to stop to get a prescription fcr pain. It turns out Percocet doesn't help me with pain, but it does make me drowsy. I wasn't in too much pain, though, so it was OK.

We got back to Ottawa around 2 a.m. and went straight to emergency. They took more X-rays and told me to come back at 8. Getting into the house at 4 am was interesting. At one point, I offered to sleep in the front hall, but my friend and Wanda managed to get me onto my foot. 

We went back to the hospital at 8. I talked to the surgeon, and he sent me home until they were ready to operate. It was so much nicer to be at home. They called later on Sunday and said that they weren't going to operate that day, and that I could eat and drink until midnight. After two days of fasting most of the day, this was good news. 

Yesterday morning, they called and told me to be at the hospital at 10:30. They operated around 12:30, and Wanda picked me up around 5. A friend's parents also came to the hospital in case Wanda needed help, but I was pretty functional.

You know, I know some pretty awesome people. People have brought food, and a reclining chair, and a shower stool, and a walker and wheelchair. It's been really nice.

I have to sit with my foot up above my heart, so I am off work for two weeks. I expect I'll be bored at some point, but right now I'm spending a lot of time sleeping. I can't really concentrate on much, either, so little iPad games are all I can do for entertainment. Hopefully that will improve soon.

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