The exact order of events from Wednesday night in the ER is
a bit fuzzy in my mind, but it went roughly like this. An awesome, attentive nurse was on duty at
the time and got Jim hooked up to IV pain meds, which helped a little, but caused
nausea.
There was a shortage of beds available in the hospital,
because that day there had been multiple tornado warnings, which required the staff to push all of the patients’ beds into the interior hallways. This, in turn, delayed discharges, which
resulted in beds continuing to be occupied which might otherwise have been
available. I have to believe it was this
shortage of beds that prompted the next memorable event. The nurse said he had been instructed to
attempt to “ambulate” Jim and send him home.
I was flabbergasted. Thankfully,
the nurse could see that Jim was not faking it, was not overreacting to a bad
bruise or anything like that. The nurse
said, “Okay, I’m going to attempt to get you up, and you’re going to…” On cue, Jim screamed when the nurse attempted
to raise him to a seated position. The
nurse then filled out a form explaining he had attempted to ambulate the
patient, but the patient experienced excruciating pain (or something along
those lines). That done, Jim was allowed
to stay in the bed in the ER to await further examination by orthopedic
surgeons.
At some point very late in the night, they took Jim for
X-rays of his leg/hip and shoulder. I
can’t remember now exactly who told us that Jim’s femur was fractured near the hip
joint and he would need surgery to stabilize it. I do remember that a shoulder specialist came
in and said, “Well….your shoulder is never going to be the same.” I thought that was an odd way to deliver the
news. He went on to explain that Jim’s
shoulder was shattered into multiple pieces (we would later learn it was 6
pieces). He said, “We could do nothing,
or we could do surgery. Sometimes
surgery is not all that much better than doing nothing.” Again, I was flabbergasted.
Upon talking with the surgeon for some time, I came to learn
that shoulder surgery success is largely dependent on the patient’s current
physical health and the patient’s commitment to rehabilitation of the
joint. I insisted that Jim was an
excellent candidate for the surgery. I
was not about to let them send him home without doing anything! And, I knew I was right about Jim’s
candidacy. Thank God I did that!
After all the X-rays and consultations, Jim was still in
extreme pain and still not in the hospital proper. In the ER, the next nurse on shift got Jim
started on stronger IV pain meds and gave him an anti-nausea medication. Finally, he slept. And I waited…and waited…and waited. I had been told the next orthopedic surgeon
would be doing rounds towards 6 a.m., but 6 a.m. came and went and nobody
checked on Jim.
Finally, around 9 a.m., I started getting bitchy. I raised my voice and demanded that somebody
come check on Jim and get his surgery scheduled. It turned out somehow the rounding physician
had missed Jim when he did his rounds at 6 a.m.
After several phone calls that I had to place myself with the
orthopedic surgeon, I was able to get Jim scheduled for his leg surgery that
afternoon (Thursday, Aug 25).
Mercifully, around noon, they told us a bed was available in
some other wing of the hospital (not the orthopedic wing), and Jim could have
that temporarily while he waited for surgery.
They got him into the bed, got him settled, and then we (really I –
because Jim was mostly “out of it”) met with the surgeon. Everything was all set to go and the surgeon
told me I could leave and come back in time for the surgery, if I
wanted to.
I had not eaten anything since lunch the day before. So, I grabbed McDonald’s, rushed home, let
the dog out, fed the cats, took a quick shower, and got back to the hospital by
2:30 in time for the surgery.
Jim was assigned an actual room in the hospital’s orthopedic
wing after his leg surgery. The surgeon met
us there and explained what he had done during the procedure. He drew a diagram on a white board showing us
the fancy hardware he had installed in Jim’s leg. I took a photo of that (shown at the bottom
of this post).
Somehow the surgery almost completely eliminated Jim’s leg
pain. I found that amazing and
miraculous. I was so happy that at least
a part of his horrible pain was gone.
Now I felt like he was going to be okay and that I could let my guard
down a little.
Finally, around 6 pm on Thursday,
I tucked Jim in, kissed him good-bye, and headed home. I hadn’t slept since Tuesday night.
To be continued…
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