The ankle story: Part 2

[part one]

I settled onto the couch for the long-haul. My mom brought me a stack of pillows to elevate my leg and covered the surface of my coffee table in necessities like bottled water, Tylenol 3s, granola bars, kleenex, and books. A similar pillow configuration was built in my bed for when I would relocate to sleep.

Sunday passed uneventfully, with me learning how to shuffle myself around the apartment between fits of restless sleep. I talked to my supervisor on the phone, crying while she told me not to worry, to rest, to take care of myself. They were exactly the kinds of things you would say, but the comfort for me was immeasurable. At this point in time, my contract at work was less than a week expired and no new arrangements had been made. I could have been let go and I wouldn't have been surprised. I probably should not have been thinking this way, but being on a contract feels unstable enough, so I was fearing the worst. Finding out I was safe meant I could move on to worrying about the more pressing issues.

Tylenol 3s are helpful but they never addressed the pain I was feeling rippling out from my ankle, the tendons that had been damaged with my break. My pain was dull but it was deep. I slept. Barely. I was upset, zoned out.

Monday came and I began a long day of fasting, which made me feel worse and worse with every passing hour, my stomach tight not only because of the hunger, but also with anxiety about the possible surgery. My supervisor came to visit after work, bringing me a stack of dvds, magazines, a card from my coworkers, and a bowl of blueberry crisp still warm from the oven. When I made it past 8pm with no word about surgery, I ate the crisp first, before my dinner.

Then it was Tuesday, January 18th and my phone rang shortly before 8am with a call from the hospital asking me to come in for surgery. My parents came to pick me up and take me to Admitting. I was wheeled to a shared room in the day surgery ward and answered a long questionnaire about my medical history and circumstances over the past 24 hours. I put on a gown and they bagged my clothes and took them away. My parents left to go back to work. The man in the room with me had a portable TV or something on which Regis and Kelly was watched; I didn't sleep.

I was taken to Pre-Op around 11am and wheeled into a dock alongside about 12 other patients, most with a guest beside their beds. I was alone and very aware of there being no privacy curtains in this room. I stared at the ceiling and let my tears leak down the sides of my face into my ears. A nurse visited to start an IV. She complained I had "dainty veins" and had to send a specialist to hook me up. I was given a plastic bonnet to put on. The specialist came to poke me some more and finally got me started.

I was visited by a male (I later learned he was a resident) who asked me what was being operated on. When I indicated my left ankle, he flipped back my bedsheet, pushed up my gown, and drew on my thigh with a permanent marker. He walked away. My heart was racing and I had to convince myself to keep breathing otherwise I might have screamed. I replaced my sheet, but left my cast out in case that wasn't making it obvious enough about why I was there. My anesthesiologist visited to confirm my height, weight, medications, and lack of food/drink intake. My surgeon came next, to ask me the same questions I had already answered and to tell me about the surgery. Again, I don't remember this. I wouldn't look at him and I couldn't stop crying.

A while later, I got taken into the operating room. Either it was freezing or I was having an even harder time coping. I was able to shift myself from my stretcher onto the table and laid down. There were about seven people in the room. One peeled my gown down my front and began attaching sensors to my chest. The anesthesiologist got to work quickly, thank goodness, otherwise I was going to lose my mind. He put a mask on me, but not before someone else began strapping my arms down. I was still crying when I was knocked out. This may sound silly to you, but as a sexual assault survivor, this was traumatic. As a sexual assault survivor where restraints were used, this was especially traumatic. In the hospital, your body is not yours.

I woke up in the Recovery Room with my throat on fire and my stomach threatening to jump up, out of my mouth. Noises that began as low moans turned more frantic and whining as I began to realize the pain in my ankle. A nurse approached me and told me to relax. I couldn't keep my eyes open and I couldn't speak. I wasn't able to relax no matter how hard I tried to focus on breathing. The nurse returned and seemed to huff as she shot something into my IV - morphine, I found out after. This worked, though it made me feel like someone had steamrolled me onto the bed. They brought a huge machine to my bedside to take x-rays. I couldn't move so they had to position me accordingly and the pain screamed inside me again. After that I got permanently hooked up to a blood pressure cuff that filled consistently, what I guess would be every 5 minutes. Eventually someone came over and told me I was fine to go back to the day surgery ward but there was no bed for me. This is when I became aware of the Recovery Room having about 20 other bays, all filled, all curtainless. It could be my imagination, but I feel like everyone was doing much better at recovering from their own surgeries. I felt ill all over again knowing everyone could see the fit I had.

At about 1:30pm, they gave up on getting me a bed in the ward and wheeled me into a dim corridor so someone else could use my bay in the Recovery Room. It was quieter. I was alone. I also felt forgotten. Time did not exist in this place. All I knew was that I needed to pee so badly and there was no one to tell. Finally someone came to fetch me and take me upstairs. I learned it was around 3pm. My mom came to see me as a nurse hooked up an antibiotic drip, saying I needed it before I left. My dad came in and told me to get better because I was worrying my mom too much. I felt sick.

They brought me my clothes back and let me dress myself so I could go home. I wouldn't let my mom help me because I have a tattoo she doesn't know about. Childish, I know. My surgeon sent up a prescription for Percocet and I got wheeled out to the car. We made it back to the apartment and I was able to get myself into bed somehow. I was incredibly weak. I slept.

Second cast - my least favourite.

The ankle story: Part 1

I am planning to share the story of breaking my ankle here. It is like therapy for me to write the details. Despite being months and months removed from this, I was still incredibly emotional as I typed this out. This is the first part of my experience.

On January 15, 2011, I was out celebrating a friend's birthday. I enjoyed some fizzy wine, did a shot with the crew, and danced dorkily. I left around midnight, picking my way through a foot of snow into a cab that took me home. Upon entrance to my apartment building, my boot skidded in a puddle of water and I rolled over on my ankle, landing in the melted snow tracked in by other residents. There was about two feet of unprotected tile before the mats were placed down, and that first step is the one that upended me and my next few months.

On the floor of the vestibule, I couldn't quite process what had just happened other than my gut knew to stay on the floor. When I lifted my leg, my foot dangled. So I put it back down. I sat there trying to breathe and figure out what to do and that's when the pain started to leak into my brain. I probably shouldn't have, but I unzipped my boot and took it off to see what was going on. My ankle had ballooned already and was hot to the touch. For some reason this was less scary than calling an ambulance, but I started to cry, realizing I was in shit either way.

The 9-11 operator was kind and patient with me as I tried to talk through my tears. Looking back, I'm pretty proud of the composure I hung onto, especially considering what was to come later. The EMTs arrived very quickly, two women and one very young male who was in training. They strapped my leg into a giant splint and cheerleaded me into pushing myself up to get on the stretcher. Being tied to a stretcher is pretty upsetting. I forgot how to breathe. They tucked ice packs around my ankle and spoke warmly to me on the way to the hospital. No sirens, lots of rumbling. They gave me oxygen but my eyes wouldn't dry. I was scared. This was the first time I'd ever been in an ambulance and only the third time I'd be going to emerg in my life. I did not yet know that the EMTs would be the nicest people I would meet on this journey.

At the hospital, the EMTs left me in the care of a nurse who asked me a ton of questions that I would soon learn to repeat every time I interacted with a new medical person. She scolded me for drinking (valid) and wearing inappropriate footwear (boots?) and suspiciously, judgmentally asked me why I was crying so much. Then another nurse came to cut my jeans off of me, which is one of the most traumatizing things I've experienced.

About an hour later, I was wheeled to get x-rays. The ideal positions for ankle x-rays were excruciating. I became nauseous and began shaking. I was piled with blankets but wouldn't stop shivering until I was home the next day. A doctor came next to tell me the x-rays showed both bones were broken. He explained that they were going to knock me out and set and cast the ankle. I was moved to another room in which there were 5 people who would be present for this process. It was not explained to me who they were. A woman who I assume was a nurse grumped about the last nurse not getting me into a gown. They let me undress myself thankfully but it probably took me 15 minutes. It is bizarre to lay naked while someone bags your possessions. I fully expected to never see them again. I wouldn't let them take my glasses out of my hand. Once appropriately unattired, they started an IV and I was out. When I woke up, there was my clunky cast, up to my knee. I was x-rayed again then they took me back to the main emergency room and finally allowed me painkillers.

The doctor came back to tell me my ankle was in the correct position to heal well, but he was recommending surgery to have reinforcements inserted to strengthen my ankle and prevent problems in the future. He was passing me off to the orthopedic surgeon. It was around 4 am at this point and I was expected to rest until the surgeon could see me. I did not rest; I cried, I wiped my eyes on the bedsheets. No one checked on me and I did not have a call button. The painkillers helped initially; however, I experienced extreme discomfort this entire time, never getting relief from the throbbing pain, just from the stabbing pain.

I waited until 7 am to call my mom, doing my best not to terrify her. She did way better with this than I gave her credit for. She was upset but kept reminding me that it was an accident, and it happens, and it could have been worse. Shortly after, the surgeon arrived to tell me about the procedure. I don't remember much of this. It's possible he explained the incisions and what would be put inside of me, but all of that came as a surprise to me later. Whatever his explanation was, I signed the paperwork. The next piece of news was that they were booked with more urgent surgery for the day so they were sending me home to be on call for an opening. They could call at any time, up until 8 pm. This meant I could not eat or drink until I had heard whether it was going to be a surgery day or not. Between 8 and midnight, I could eat and drink, then it would be back to fasting and waiting. The surgeon prescribed Tylenol 3 for me and said he would summon the physiotherapist for me.

Now that I was to be discharged, things moved quickly. I realized I hadn't thought to ask my mom to bring me pants, so off she went to fetch bottoms for me to wear home. The physiotherapist came with a shiny set of crutches for me. I could barely sit up, so I had no clue how I would manage to hoist myself around. She did not understand this and sighed at me, frustrated that crutches were going to be an effort for me. I started to notice the pain coming back in waves that debilitated me any time I moved. Somehow I got myself up onto my good foot, wedged the crutches under my arms, and learned the motions to start getting around. I moved about 6 feet across the floor and back, making the smallest gestures possible. I am uncoordinated on the best of days. My left leg stuck straight out below me, heavy and awkward as I tried to manoeuvre. I signed a bill for the crutches – they would not be covered.

I finally got to sit in a wheelchair and be taken out to the car. I cried some more at the seemingly insurmountable task of getting up from the chair and into the front seat. During the ride, I tried to lift my heel from the floor of the car so it wouldn't absorb every nudge and bump. I kept crying. At least I was going home. But I had to get to my apartment first. The curb: my biggest obstacle. Keep in mind the ground was covered in snow. I stood on my three legs in front of that curb, chin on my chest, absolutely defeated. I was scared to misjudge the height and knock myself off balance. I was scared to land my foot on the sidewalk unsteadily. I was scared my crutches would slip out from under me. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I was in an amount of pain I had never felt. I started sobbing, “I can't.” Get up the curb, get around on crutches, go through surgery, carry on. I just can't. My parents linked arms with me, reassured me that I wouldn't fall again, and we worked together to lift me that small distance up onto the sidewalk.

When I got into my apartment, I have never been so thankful to sit down. I parked myself on the couch and did not move until my prescription was brought to me and I could get enough relief to reposition myself into the closest thing to comfort and try to sleep.

I did not know what would come next. I couldn't picture how I was supposed to live on crutches. I dreaded being called in for surgery. I was unsure how to tell my supervisor that I wouldn't make it to work the next day. I had lots of tears left for all of the uncertainties.

My first of three casts.

My health in 2011: By the numbers

2 broken bones
1 surgery
2 pins
1 plate
25 staples
5 hospital visits
3 casts
14 x-rays
4 different painkillers
3 family doctor appointments
3 courses of antibiotics
15 physio sessions
5 physiotherapists
13 weeks on crutches
over $1100 later...