Break Arm
Get back from CHI 95 in Denver, hop on my bike the next day with the conference materials in their canvas bag on my shoulder. Am late for project meeting. Canvas bag slides down the arm, starts bouncing off the front wheel fork. I slow down (stupid!) and the bag catches the spokes, jams against the fork, and the bike stops.
Newton takes over and momentum carries me over the handlebars and bang! I hit, landing on my left elbow, managing not to crack my skull open, and pass out for a few seconds (I think). I get up and try to lift the bike, and notice my left arm is all bendy and not levering like it’s supposed to. Some nice people at the barber shop wave at me and tell me to lie down, the ambulance is on the way.
The elbow is shattered into three pieces. The nurse asks if I want morphine. Nah - I feel fine. Adrenaline wears off. Nurse is nice enough to give me morphine after all. World gets wrapped in cotton. Strange sensation. I can tell why people get addicted.
Have x-rays taken, have to straighten out broken arm. Almost pass out again. Doctor comes, gives me options: do nothing or surgery. Fall asleep while waiting for surgery. Awake, wondering when surgery will happen. Eventually notice tube sticking out of arm, and the fact that I’m in a different room. Ah.
Spend four days in hospital recovering. Spend two of those days learning how to walk again. Lying still for almost three days does a number on you. Scary how fast the muscles go. Left arm has swollen to monster size. It’s retaining water. First night by myself: almost starve due to vacuum seal on all pasta sauces. No strength in right arm or wrist. Find screwdriver and punch hole in seal. Cook dinner for myself, one-handed. Nat and Jeff come home to find gallon jug of milk sitting on floor outside the refrigerator. The sprained wrist can pull a gallon jug off the shelf, but it turns out it can’t be used to put the jug back on the shelf.
Spend three weeks in cast while bones set (the doctor stapled the bones in place and re-created the elbow joint). Have staples taken out (no stitches - just metal staples that go klonk when the intern drops them in the tray).
Add comment May 12th, 1995