Sunday, September 24, 2017

The Worst Part

     The worst part of slipping in a puddle of dog urine when a hurricane is near and breaking your kneecap in two is... um, that. Hurricane Irma was due in Orlando on Sunday, so on Saturday I was going to get all laundry and dishwashing done and turn the ripe bananas into banana bread, all the things that require electricity, before the storm struck. I was hustling a stack of shirts back to a bedroom when I located the latest dog puddle. The Amazing Shelter Dog had been suffering an infection that made her forget her house-training. Feet flew up, head and elbow thumped against youngest son's door, and knees went into a swan dive with a one-and-a-half twist. My bottom went smack into the puddle.
     As menfolk emerged from respective rooms, my hand flew to the painful spot, felt round bone off to the left of where it belonged, and squeezed it back into place. Still felt worst pain of my life. Hollered. Hubs called 911, and we mopped up as much dog pee as we could with paper towels. When EMTs arrived, they couldn't fit gurney into the hallway, so bundled me into a carrying chair of some sort, lifting the leg as gently as possible. I hollered some more.
     Turns out the best way to get from this carrier to the gurney is to hoist yourself, while an EMT transfers the leg. "Last time I did this," I said, "I was in labor. It wasn't any fun then either."
     The worst part of being hoisted into the ambulance was feeling the soaking wet skirt, now cold under me, and thinking I would leave a wet imprint on the sheets. Focused on the hubs tail-gating the ambulance. "Is that your husband?" one of the EMTs asked. In the Winter Garden ER, they gave me a shot of morphine. The worst part of morphine is that it sends a creepy sort of tension up the neck and through the jaw, and the pain relief only lasts 15 minutes or so. The doc ordered X-rays, and in rolled a portable unit, so I could remain in my puddle while they detected the worst of the news: kneecap was broken into two separate pieces on the horizontal. Quad muscle attached to top half and tendon attached to bottom half both gave their halves a good, strong, dislocating tug. Whee. Must transfer downtown to where the ace surgeons are. When a room becomes available. In the meantime, got a steel and canvas brace strapped onto the leg. Worst part of that was, I couldn't kiss the hand of whoever invented the thing. Keeping the knee still was better than morphine.
     Hey, a room is available. Call the transport people, who haul me onto their gurney on the damp sheets. "One, two, three." At least no one can look askance at the wet spot. Riding backwards in the big ambulance was disorienting. They might have been driving me anywhere through the great masses of gray clouds, but they pulled up to the Florida Hospital door and trundled me in, through lobby and hallways, into elevator, up to seventh floor where all the busted legs go to await the sawbones.
     Had any nurse ever before heard a patient beg, "Please oh please, put me in one of those drafty, embarrassing hospital gowns"? Well, this one did. I have to admit, the gowns have improved. They actually extend across your rear, and you can tie them at the side. Could have been worse.
To be continued.