Fleeing the Cuckoo’s Nest

On January 26th I was released from rehab. I was able to escape for 6 hours the day before to attend my friends memorial two blocks away from my house. It was a bittersweet day seeing old friends to celebrate Scott’s life and also for me, passing by my home and not being able to go in. I knew it was less than 24 hours until I was home for good, so I could deal with it. On the morning of freedom, I awoke from a blissful sleep to a blood curdling scream emitted by Waxy because the aides turned her slightly and then she resumed speaking in a normal voice! I popped out of my bed as fast as I could, hopped with my walker to the closet and pulled out my suitcase. I pushed and hopped until I made it to the bed whilst singing “I’m going home, I’m going home…” It was my own song that I sang pretty loudly but Waxy couldn’t hear it. I packed up my stuff, had my little bed bath, brushed my hair, put on my makeup, refused my disgusting breakfast, took my pain meds and then realized I had 3 hours to wait until my brother-in-law would arrive to pick me up. Oh…

Chris arrived at 10:30 am and even though I had told the nervous wreck of a nurse that I needed my discharge papers by 10 am she lagged behind and I didn’t leave until 11:30 am. One of the aides rolled me down to the driveway while Chris went to get the car but when we got outside the driveway was blocked by an ambulance and a fire engine. She wheeled me down to the street where it was raining and the street has a very steep decline and is a one-way road where cars fly down. The aid could only roll me to behind the car because of the traffic and then I had to hop with my walker to the front passenger door. My walker was slipping on the wet street which made me nervous and the cars were very close by, it was a bit nerve wracking and challenging to say the least. Every time I had practiced a car transfer, it was on the level surface of the driveway not on a downhill slope. When I got into the car, I kept sliding forward on the seat because of the slope and I accidentally turned my left foot inward to get it into the car. I felt a very sharp pain in my femur that took my breath away. The pain went away pretty quickly but it did make me pretty nervous. I got all settled in and we took off screaming “Free at Last, Free at Last…!” I said to my brother-in-law that we were like Thelma and Louise and then I horribly photoshopped (on purpose) a pic of us fleeing.

We got back to Marin and stopped off for some food to bring to my house which took about 30 min, so basically I was in the car for almost an hour. When I got out of the car at my house, the sharpest, most searing pain went through my femur and every hop towards the elevator was very painful. I kept thinking that it would go away. I made it to my apartment and sat down. I was so excited to be home and I wanted to put things away and test that I could get in and out of my bed. I could with some serious muscle strength and then I finally rested. I took some Advil and more morphine and decided that rest would make the pain go away. The next day the pain was much worse and I couldn’t even hop with my walker. I was scared.

After calling the surgeon to explain what was happening, and him telling me that it sounded like I broke my femur from turning my foot inward by getting into the car, renting a wheelchair from a place in town, and having my friend pick it up, roll me to my car and drive me to radiology; I sat awaiting the results of the X-ray. I knew from the conversation with the surgeon earlier, that if the femur was broken I would be back in surgery removing the implant, putting in a new implant and a plate over the entire length of my femur and then basically wires and nuts and bolts on the outside of my upper leg for 3 months. I was so freaked out I was shaking. The radiologist came out and yelled “Yah-vette Day-Kah-tuh?” I turned towards her when she told me that it wasn’t broken, the implant had not moved and I could go home. Unfortunately for the radiologist, there was a chair in between us, because I grabbed her hands and nearly pulled her over the chair trying to hug her as I was crying. The entire waiting room applauded because they saw my friend saying The Rosary, my other friend nervously shouting “Your fine, its a muscle” about 30 times and me just crying as we waited. We were quite the group. So we left, still in a lot of pain but relieved.

As the week progressed the pain seemed to increase. The surgeon scheduled a CT Scan the next Monday which came back showing no break but a bit of fluid on the side of my femur. The sharp pain was now accompanied by horrendous cramping of my entire upper leg lasting from a minute to five minutes several times per day. I also couldn’t bend my knee or raise my leg up any longer. The surgeon and endocrinologist had put me on a drug called Forteo to try to help my bones heal faster. I looked up the side effects of Forteo and one of the uncommon side effects was muscle cramping. I instantly stopped it and sent a message to the endocrinologist stating that I stopped and why. I finally called my general doctor about three days after the CT Scan and said I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I stated I was scared that there could be an infection or a blood clot and that I didn’t know how to get the surgeon to look more closely. My surgeon was now at a conference so if I tried to email him, the email would bounce back with an out of office reply. My GP got me in for X-rays, blood test and a sonogram the next day and an appointment with an Orthopedic Surgeon as well.

That day they X-rayed every part of my left leg at every angle, gave me a blood test and a sonogram. When I saw the doctor he said he thought I had an occult fracture in my femur. This basically means they can’t see the fracture but believe its there. The reason it is unseen is because the titanium rod that is now in my femur is what is seen in the image and blocks the X-ray of bone behind or in front of the rod. The surgeon believed that the fracture was in that region and that most likely it was another hairline fracture which was good and bad news. The good news is that the new hip had not moved at all and was still securely in place. The bad news was that now I was not allowed to put any weight on my leg whatsoever for another 2-4 weeks and possibly 6 weeks. He said there was no infection YET (don’t ask) and no blood clot. He said the pain should go away in a few days, take the morphine and ride it out. I felt relieved to have an answer but devastated that the recovery would be so much longer and mostly in a wheelchair. I had to stop physical therapy which meant all the progress I had made with my muscles would just go away and I would have to start over.

I felt helpless and broken figuratively and literally.