I was walking out to the convenience store to get some sodas and cigarettes for the long night of coding I had planned. I figured it would be a simple trip there and back, but the weather had different ideas. On my way home, I was stuck in what officially being called a blizzard. It wasn’t to bad, seeing as I didn’t have far to go, but air was really cold, and the ground was really slick. I’m about four blocks from my home, crossing the street in order to catch the last bus on the return leg of my journey. I was half debating just walking home, seeing as the bus was probably going to be late anyway. I didn’t even get all the way across the street. About two steps from the curb, I stepped in a really slick spot of road, the earth disappeared below my body at around 8:00 pm. I twisted and fell straight down. I didn’t hurt very much, so I thought, well, geez, that’s embarrassing. I tried to stand, but my leg said no. Apparently I fell hard enough to break both my tibia and my fibula, and there was no way I was getting back on my feet. The truck that was stopped at the red light watched me fall down in front of him, but I assured him that he did not hit me, he never got closer than two feet from me really. The nice gentleman and his wife, whom I did not manage to catch the names of, pulled over to the side, and called me an ambulance. They were also kind enough to grab my bag of goodies from the store and put them back in the bag for me, as well as lay a very warm blanket over my body to keep me warm while we waited on the EMT to arrive. If you are reading this, and you are one of those people, thank you from the bottom of my heart!
The fire department arrived about 10 minutes later, along with a Hennepin County Sherriff, and helped me get up into the gurney to move me into the Ambulance. I’m not going to say the process was painless, but they were very caring individuals and took every precaution to prevent causing me further pain as the placed me in the vehicle. They closed the doors, and turned on the heat and injected me with some morphine. They waited a good ten to fifteen minutes for the drugs to take full effect before wrapping my leg in a protective cocoon of soft pillows and blankets, which they taped up so that the vibrations of the road would not injure me. We chatted a bit, distracting me from my leg, about life and other various stuff to pass the time, and they assured me the vehicle would not move until they were sure everything was in place to make the trip as comfortable as possible. These guys were the nicest people I’ve ever met, and I did my best to be polite and kind in return as a sign of respect. I did not bitch, groan, or moan the entire time I was in their care. It wasn’t their fault I was injured, and they were helping. I have the utmost respect for people like them. When everything was finally good to go and we started moving, the driver drove slow and steady in order to minimize any jerking caused by the rough icy road. I didn’t get their names either, but I would also like to thank them.
I arrived at the Hennepin County Medical Center emergency room at about 11:00pm. They set me up in a temporary room in Orthopedics. I was pretty good on the morphine, but the nice nurse brought me some dilaudid which killed the pain much better and much quicker than the morphine. Two X-Ray techs came and got me to take pictures of my bones, and let me tell you, that was the most painful thing I did during my entire hospital stay. They were very nice, and very gentle, but my leg was very tender. I managed to be polite and not scream at them at all, even though they insisted that it would be alright and that they would totally understand. They said, before the process even began that they would end up being my least favorite doctors. They lied. They had wonderful senses of humor that made the painful process go by quickly and far less traumatic than it could have been. They were probably my favorite people in the ER, other than the the nurse who came by periodically and shot me up with more pain killers. She was really nice! An angel sent from heaven, I swear. Anyway, we got the pictures back from the machine, and I had a spiral fracture, one at the top of my tibia, and one at the bottom of my fibula ( I may have gotten those reversed, but then I’m not a doctor, but the big one was broken near the ankle, and the small one near the knee ).
A little later I went over my medical options with a lovely doctor with a U of M nametag. She told me that I had two main options, I could either just reset it and splint it, but then I would be in a cast for about eight to fourteen weeks, followed by a brace for a short period that I don’t remember after. My other option was that I could go for surgery, and they would shove two metal rods down the centers of my bones and nail them into place. This procedure would take about 4 weeks to heal in a brace, no cast required. I decided to go for the surgery, and then called my roommate as I was pretty high from the meds to ensure that I was making the right decision. He agreed. If I had not gone with the surgery, I would have been bed ridden much longer, and there was a very good chance that when it was all said and done, if anything went wrong I might end up needing the surgery anyway. She insisted that I could change my mind at any time before the surgery took place to not have it, but I was resolute in my decision, and went ahead with it.
I spent the night there, and the hospital food was actually quite decent. It was a bit on the mild side, but that was good for me with all the meds they had in my system. At 7:30 am, they brought me into the surgery prep room. The nurse said that the Anesthesiologist would be by shortly to discuss the knock out drugs they were going to give me, to ensure there was nothing in the mix that would cause issues. We went over my drug allergies with the drug doctor ( because Anesthesiologist is really long, so drug doctor from her on ), and after determining there would be no issues, we just talked for a bit. She injected some saline in my little attachment they had installed in the vein of my arm the day before, to ensure that it was clean before getting the drugs. I don’t remember them getting the drug. We finished talking about it, and I asked, so when are you all going to put me under, and she responded that my surgery was already over and it was now about 10:00 in the morning. I swear the woman never moved, she was even just finishing an injection that looked exactly the same as the one she was doing before I conked out. Apparently it was my wake up drugs. I was totally amazed. I spent the rest of the day and that night in the hospital for observation.
The next day I talked to a financial advisor and to my Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy nurses. After passing their tests, they finally said that it was okay for me to come home. And that’s the story of my lovely trip in Minneapolis.
Mark LaDoux 