Just
about everyone I know has, at some point or another, broken a bone. I’ve been
relatively proud of the fact that I had never broken a bone, something that
seemed a bit funny to me after an incident in 2007 where I broke some cartilage
off in my knee. Well, my winning streak in which no bones in my body had been
broken during my life had to come to an end sometime, as determined by the
Universe, and the Universe decided that Sunday, August 10th, at nine
months pregnant, I was to break my ankle.
The
morning started out fine. My dad and littlest brother came out to visit and the
plan was to go to Northwest Trek—my grandparents, dad, and brother. My grandpa
was almost determined to keep me at home so that I wouldn’t go into labor while
walking the pathways or riding the tram, but I went along while Randy slept (he
did not want to get up).
The
tram ride was the first thing we did, which was fantastic, because it meant
that I could go into labor any time during the day afterwards and it wouldn’t
really matter. We walked the park, though, and I felt no labor pains—no contractions,
nothing. I was a bit disappointed; the main reason I’d wanted to go to the
park, aside from a strong desire to get out of the house for a while, was so
that I could walk around a lot and hopefully move things along to get the fetus
out. We came home without incident and I went to the bathroom, which was when I
heard Mema (my grandma) rushing through the house and saying something about
Liliana, my cat, getting out through the window screen on the back porch.
Quite
concerned, I finished my business and headed outside, wanting to help find the
cat, which was likely long gone by this point. But I hated feeling useless—being
nine months pregnant renders a woman relatively useless in a lot of ways. I
headed down the porch steps and on the last step, rolled my right ankle. My
left ankle followed as I tried to catch myself, and I heard a pop and felt a
snap in my ankle as I fell flat on my butt—screaming. My dad and grandma came
running and out came my grandpa, everybody trying to get me to calm down, which
simply wasn’t going to happen right then. I knew my ankle was broken, but then
Mema said something about the possibility of only having pulled a tendon.
Somehow, with much help, I scooted back up the porch steps using my
now-sprained right ankle.
I sat
for a while as Beba—my grandpa—wrapped my left ankle in a bandage. I repeated a
few times that I needed to go to the hospital, and finally I was helped out to
the car by my dad and Beba. The ride to the hospital was excruciating, every
bump in the road jarring my broken ankle despite its being wrapped. Finally, we
arrived at the emergency room and a wheelchair was brought out for me. With
some help, I managed to get into it and I was wheeled inside, where they stuck
me on the bed in a room for trauma patients.
This
all started around 2 in the afternoon, which was roughly the time of the fall.
I was sitting around in the emergency room for hours, going from the trauma center to radiology and back again as
they took X-rays of my ankles and spine while using multiple shields to protect
the fetus. The next thing I knew, it was extremely late—like, 10pm late—and the
orthopedics had finally shown up to
splint my ankle, which had been determined to be broken. Nobody said anything
about my right ankle except that it was swollen—as if I couldn’t see that for
myself. After getting the angle of my foot wrong in the first splint—and causing
me to scream-cry uncontrollably like a newborn (literally)—the orthopedics
finally got a splint on correctly, but not without other doctors coming in and
giving me pain meds through my IV despite my protests that they were
ineffective and I didn’t want my baby being all drugged up.
At last, the splint was
finished. They left my right foot and ankle completely alone, though, which was
rather annoying, considering how swollen it was.
Why,
yes, my right ankle was swollen,
thanks for pointing that out… and leaving me to know that it’s sprained without
a professional determination. That swelling got worse over the course of the
next week and a half, swelling so that my toes no longer resembled my toes and
instead looked like tiny, fat sausages at the end of a really fat… something. I’m
really not sure what I would call what my foot looked like at its most swollen.
I was
stuck in the hospital for the week. After having my left ankle put in the
splint shown above, Randy wheeled me upstairs to the labor and delivery triage
of the hospital, where they monitored me for several hours, beginning around
midnight when I arrived. I had Randy take Mema home at that time, since I didn’t
know how long they would keep me there. Around 3am, the doctor came in and
began telling me how and why he believed that they should induce my labor to
have my baby. I was surprised and felt a bit of victory—when I had arrived in
the triage, I’d mentioned having the baby to the first nurse who came in and
she told me why they prefer not to
induce labor until after a mother had gone the full 40 weeks of pregnancy. This
turn of events, I thought, was rather convenient; I wouldn’t need to return to
the hospital later to have the baby.
I was induced Monday and had the
baby that afternoon… I had an appointment back with orthopedics on Friday and
as it turned out, I ended up having to stay in the hospital for the week, so
when the time came, I was wheeled down to orthopedics, where I received an
actual cast.
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