All my fault redux

Leaving Chestnut Hill after morphine.

Just to preserve my latest catastrophe for posterity, here's the whole sad story.

Last Saturday we were at Morris Arboretum in Philly with my dearest Enny, visiting from Canada for Breakaway 3. I was taking a picture of the model train chugging overhead and backed up without looking. Crash I went over a short little border fence backwards into a flower bed and broke my wrist trying to catch myself. Both painful AND embarrassing... :(

Since I hit my head on a branch when I fell and was too dizzy to even walk, the folks there called the paramedics. They put me in an ambulance and took me to the closest hospital, Chestnut Hill, a small local hospital in northwest Philly. Because I was in tears from the pain, the nurse got the doc to authorize morphine. They took x-rays, told me my wrist was broken and to see an orthopedic surgeon, and released me with a prescription for Vicodin. Five hours there.

At Jefferson ER Sunday evening after Lidocaine & Percocet.

Sunday morning first thing I called my girls, who were down the shore, so they wouldn't find out about it on Facebook. Betsy, the nurse, was disturbed that I hadn't really been treated and thought I should go to Jefferson ER right away. She even called her friend, who's an ER anesthesiologist at a big hospital in NY City, and he agreed. So we went to Jefferson, one of the best hospitals in Philly.

We spent eight hours there, all day Sunday. I finally saw a hand specialist, who told me it was a very bad break, the distal radius for those of you that know about those things. He injected Lidocaine directly into the fracture, which hurt like hell, then wrapped his leg around my upper arm and pulled and twisted to try to get the bone back in place. All I can say is, it's a good thing he was cute.

At home after surgery & lots of Percocet.

The cute doc also put my name in with the ortho group, which got me squeezed in for an appt Wednesday morning with an orthopedic surgeon. He got me into surgery that afternoon for a plate and screws to hold the bone together.

I’m still in a fair bit of pain, taking Percocet, but I hope each day will be better. I'm already down from two pills every six hours to one. Maybe tomorrow none...

And that's the truth. Pblffttt.

Follow-up a week later for those of you worrying about narcotic pain relievers & addictive personalities. I took my last Percocet on Friday, two days after surgery. Since then I've been doing okay on ibuprofen. So no worries, folks!