Broken a.k.a. A One Legged Journey
Reposted from my Wordpress Account for those of you who want the details.
Friday night a month ago now I waited impatiently for my pizza. It was coming on 10 PM and still no notification from the pizza place, the driver, or anyone else. So I made a phone call, and the service told me that the incompetent delivery boy was somewhere nearby unable to find my very obvious apartment. I should have stayed inside, but instead I asked the man on the phone if it might be more productive if I went outside to sort of flag down the lost, dumpy little vehicle.
Thinking it would only take a moment, I put on a pair of shoes and, sans jacket, slid outside. We finally found each other, the ignoramus and I, and as he handed me my goods I slid off the sidewalk and landed on my butt. No big deal initially, I laughed it off… I gathered up my things and headed inside. Once I set my things down I realized that in my little slip I’d lost my cell phone. Sighing, I turned away from my late dinner and headed back out in attempt to find the old lime green buried somewhere in the snow. I stood on the sidewalk brushing my foot over the packed down white stuff when suddenly I slid and… CRACK, CRACK!. I dropped. At first I assumed I’d twisted my ankle and popped a joint, but as I leaned up to move my leg I found I couldn’t pick it up… my thigh would move but the lower half of my leg lay without real inclination to shift along with the direction of my muscles. I felt nothing…but I knew…I’d broken my leg. Animal confusion overwhelmed me and I yelled out… but I went ignored for what seemed like an eternity. Until one of my idiot neighbors saw fit to holler out “CALL AN AMBULANCE THEN”… What? I was laying in the snow, no coat, a broken leg, and no ability to do anything other than try to pull myself closer to my front door. “I BROKE MY FUCKING LEG” was my unintelligent response. I was laying outside for somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes hollering until my lungs felt like bursting, when a girl from the building across the parking lot ventured out and asked me if I was okay… I wasn’t… she called 911 and allowed me to call my Dad, who for some reason didn’t understand me the first three times I told him I was laying in the snow with a broken leg.
After a few minutes of me talking with this girl my neighbor emerged and brought with him a stack of blankets a mile thick that he threw over me as I shuddered in the cold. By now my leg had begun to spazam bringing with it wave after wave of complete agony. Finally the police and an ambulance arrived pulling me out of the snow and dragging me to the hospital. Admittedly I howled with every jerk of my calf muscle around broken bones and begged for pain medication or for the world to blacken around me. But of course owing to my remarkable tolerance I stayed conscious the entire time. Hours of being shifted around on beds still wrapped in my soaked clothes, flooded with medication as everyone stared at my mangled right leg which had served for so long as my stabilizing force owing to my unique movement difficulties.
Now it was useless, torn to bits. After some agonizing x-rays from the worst person I’ve ever met, I was transported to another room where I met a woman who’s world was made cynical by years of dealing with Flint’s lowest of the low. She and two other women were trying to figure out how to get me out of my wet garments which were still packed with snow, and into a dry bed…imagine her surprise when despite my pain I huffed and hoisted myself over to my new space and sat up to remove the rest of my clothes. She remarked with astonishment to my parents as to how I’d helped them and stroked my pained forehead.
I was doped and allowed to sleep.
At nine the next morning I headed down to wait in line for surgery…I had a tib-fib break and a partial fracture… I would have a metal rod inserted in my leg along with plates and screws. A week and a half of Physical and Occupational Therapy followed all of it… during which I lost a large amount of weight and gained a lot of muscle (definitely not a diet and exercise plan I’d recommend following) until finally being sent home to stay with my parents the rest of my recovery.
I still can’t walk, I spend most of my time in a wheelchair learning how to operate things from chair-level…it’s put a lot of things in my life in perspective… and I’ve already begun operating on another path, though the pain medication occasionally offers up a massive emotional setback. My days are filled with obstacles and overcoming them, and it’s put a lot of my friendships into question owing to the fact that many people who I thought cared didn’t even spare me a phone call during those long and lonely nights I stayed in rehab. Those people have definitely earned a new place in my life, on the absolute lowest rung.
I am most definitely grateful for every phone call, no matter how brief, every visit, and every get well soon item I received… the whole thing has given me a deeper appreciation and realization of those friends in my life. I am very, very thankful.
I’m off now to relax a while and rub the tension out of my leg.
Friday night a month ago now I waited impatiently for my pizza. It was coming on 10 PM and still no notification from the pizza place, the driver, or anyone else. So I made a phone call, and the service told me that the incompetent delivery boy was somewhere nearby unable to find my very obvious apartment. I should have stayed inside, but instead I asked the man on the phone if it might be more productive if I went outside to sort of flag down the lost, dumpy little vehicle.
Thinking it would only take a moment, I put on a pair of shoes and, sans jacket, slid outside. We finally found each other, the ignoramus and I, and as he handed me my goods I slid off the sidewalk and landed on my butt. No big deal initially, I laughed it off… I gathered up my things and headed inside. Once I set my things down I realized that in my little slip I’d lost my cell phone. Sighing, I turned away from my late dinner and headed back out in attempt to find the old lime green buried somewhere in the snow. I stood on the sidewalk brushing my foot over the packed down white stuff when suddenly I slid and… CRACK, CRACK!. I dropped. At first I assumed I’d twisted my ankle and popped a joint, but as I leaned up to move my leg I found I couldn’t pick it up… my thigh would move but the lower half of my leg lay without real inclination to shift along with the direction of my muscles. I felt nothing…but I knew…I’d broken my leg. Animal confusion overwhelmed me and I yelled out… but I went ignored for what seemed like an eternity. Until one of my idiot neighbors saw fit to holler out “CALL AN AMBULANCE THEN”… What? I was laying in the snow, no coat, a broken leg, and no ability to do anything other than try to pull myself closer to my front door. “I BROKE MY FUCKING LEG” was my unintelligent response. I was laying outside for somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes hollering until my lungs felt like bursting, when a girl from the building across the parking lot ventured out and asked me if I was okay… I wasn’t… she called 911 and allowed me to call my Dad, who for some reason didn’t understand me the first three times I told him I was laying in the snow with a broken leg.
After a few minutes of me talking with this girl my neighbor emerged and brought with him a stack of blankets a mile thick that he threw over me as I shuddered in the cold. By now my leg had begun to spazam bringing with it wave after wave of complete agony. Finally the police and an ambulance arrived pulling me out of the snow and dragging me to the hospital. Admittedly I howled with every jerk of my calf muscle around broken bones and begged for pain medication or for the world to blacken around me. But of course owing to my remarkable tolerance I stayed conscious the entire time. Hours of being shifted around on beds still wrapped in my soaked clothes, flooded with medication as everyone stared at my mangled right leg which had served for so long as my stabilizing force owing to my unique movement difficulties.
Now it was useless, torn to bits. After some agonizing x-rays from the worst person I’ve ever met, I was transported to another room where I met a woman who’s world was made cynical by years of dealing with Flint’s lowest of the low. She and two other women were trying to figure out how to get me out of my wet garments which were still packed with snow, and into a dry bed…imagine her surprise when despite my pain I huffed and hoisted myself over to my new space and sat up to remove the rest of my clothes. She remarked with astonishment to my parents as to how I’d helped them and stroked my pained forehead.
I was doped and allowed to sleep.
At nine the next morning I headed down to wait in line for surgery…I had a tib-fib break and a partial fracture… I would have a metal rod inserted in my leg along with plates and screws. A week and a half of Physical and Occupational Therapy followed all of it… during which I lost a large amount of weight and gained a lot of muscle (definitely not a diet and exercise plan I’d recommend following) until finally being sent home to stay with my parents the rest of my recovery.
I still can’t walk, I spend most of my time in a wheelchair learning how to operate things from chair-level…it’s put a lot of things in my life in perspective… and I’ve already begun operating on another path, though the pain medication occasionally offers up a massive emotional setback. My days are filled with obstacles and overcoming them, and it’s put a lot of my friendships into question owing to the fact that many people who I thought cared didn’t even spare me a phone call during those long and lonely nights I stayed in rehab. Those people have definitely earned a new place in my life, on the absolute lowest rung.
I am most definitely grateful for every phone call, no matter how brief, every visit, and every get well soon item I received… the whole thing has given me a deeper appreciation and realization of those friends in my life. I am very, very thankful.
I’m off now to relax a while and rub the tension out of my leg.