Jacque: The great Fall

This week has been an adventure. We had the car packed and were ready to go to the senior"s conference. When I remembered I had forgotten a couple of items. Reed waited in the car while I ran in to get them. It had rained and there was some water in footprints as we had gone in and out putting things in the car. In my hurry I stepped in some of the water and slipped causing me to fall onto my side. Grateful I did not hit my head on the table that was just inches away. I hurt like crazy, but I thought if i just laid still the pain would lessen and I would be able to get up, but it didn't lessen and I could not move my arm out from underneath me. Reed finally came in to see what was taking me so long. We called Sister Tanner to come and help me get up. As we assessed our options I knew I had hurt myself more than just a bruise. We stabilized my arm and then with help I was able to get up and get in the car. We have a new hospital about 20 minutes from us. I always said that if we need to go to a hospital I would want to go home but there weren't many options at this point. After being x-rayed they called in an orthopedic doctor. He told us it would require surgery to fix my arm which was fractured in 3 places just below the head. We called our doctors in Manila to get their opinion and it was the same as Dr. Cortes. After more blood work and x-rays I was scheduled for OR the next day. After 4 hours of surgery I was put back together. They had trouble with the x-ray machine so it took longer than the planned 1 hour. They put in a plate and 8 screws to hold it together. They had to put in longer screws than normal to attach it to good bone, Apparently I have a lot of osteoporosis in my bones. So much for taking calcium. Dr. Cortes said I have plenty of calcium in my body just none of it is getting to the bone.So now I am on Bonviva. He is hopeful the plate will hold and I will not need a shoulder replacement I get the staples out in two weeks. Start PT this week and in 6 weeks can quit wearing the slings.

This is by far the nicest hospital around. It is clean, may I just say that again, It is clean. Most of the hospitals are pretty scary. You have to bring your own water with you, as well as toilet paper, thermometer, towels (however they did provide sheets and a pillow and most important of all you need to bring a "watcher", that is some one to be with you and help you. The watcher has to go to a pharmacy and buy you meds and IV fluids and dressing kits for the nurses to give you. When the money given for the deposit runs out he goes and puts more money down so they can give you more treatments. So you have to bring along a lot of cash when you go to the hospital. The nurses dispense drugs, do vitals, and chart your pain level. If you do need them there is a red button attached to the wall that is behind the bed. that no one can reach.

My room and my watcher, Major problem. NO windows

See the red button on the wall behind the bed. That is the nurses call button

My watcher at work. This cot is provided for the watcher.You are only allowed one watcher.

After surgery. Not feeling very great

Technology is behind here.

Before they would give me any meds they placed some under the skin with a needle to make sure I wasn't allergic to it. It was pretty painful. Before surgery they had to determine my clotting time. So they cut my arm and dabbed at the blood watching their time watch until I quit bleeding. They used a huge gauge needle to try and start an IV in my hand and just kept blowing it even though there were three of them trying, finally they went to a smaller needle and got it in my wrist. The next blood draw had to be in my foot. they had pretty well damaged everything else.