The doctor that was so insistent that I have a brace for my dislocated shoulder was now saying that was the least of my problems as soon as I told her that with both my arms bound up, I has no leverage to get up or sit down. She really wanted to get me out of there. Gosh I love managed care. Several years ago I had a bad sled-riding accident and broke my ankle. As a result, I was in the hospital for 3 days. 12 years later, I’m in a motorcycle accident and I’m in the ER for less than 10 hours and off to home.
The second attempt to get out went much better with my left arm free. It still made me go faint everytime my broken collar bone ground, but I was able to get up off the bed and onto the chair. It was then I realized what a mess had been made in the bed..blood was everywhere, mixed with the dirt and grass from ditch. It looked like something straight out of a WWII triage.
The nurse wheeled me out to my mom’s van and I hoisted myself into the front seat. We left the hospital and made our way home. It was about 1:30 AM by the time we arrived home. My dad was there watching the kids and he wheeled me up the driveway. My uncle had gone to get my grandmother’s old wheelchair, which came in quite handy. I stopped by the bathroom and then made my way to the la-z-boy in the family room. I settled in and tried to go to sleep. While it did not come easily, or in long stretches, I was able to get in a couple of hours in total.
The next morning came, and the stiffness that I had expected from my car accident in high school came on strong. Now I had the added fun of having all my muscles ache with the incredible shooting pain of my broken collar bone. But nothing could match the pain of my foot on that first day after. The stitches were doing their job, but I could feel every beat of my heart in my foot. It felt like I had a piece of glass running through the side of my foot.
Fortunately, I did have the aid of some good pain killers, but I had to use them sparingly because I had an important webcast for my job at the end of the week that I had to get ready for and I couldn’t be that loopy. I had my wife bring me my laptop and phone around 10 and sent out an email to the people I had meetings with that week letting them know what had happened. I called my admin and re-worked my schedule for the week to only keep the appointments I needed to get the webcast going. The first day passed as a blur of pills, recliners and a few phone calls.
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