Poor Starson. This was his New Year’s Eve night. A passed out wife and a 120 pound Great Pyrenees freaked out by fireworks.
Read moreLearning Patience Through Broken Bones
On Sunday night, Starson and I were talking about what was coming up over the next couple of weeks and I was asking him about doing yet another project. He graciously informed me that two months ago I said no more projects until spring. Ha! We still haven’t stopped. I was telling my mom about it the next day and she reminded me that, yes, in fact, I had said exactly that. She reminded me my husband needs a break too. I decided they were right and set off to tackle a couple projects we had around the house by myself so that Starson would not feel so overwhelmed.
The puppies royal whelping box. A 6’x6’ box. It looks more like a kids fort with the tarp over it now.
Instead of waiting for help like I should have or letting the boys do this by themselves, I decided to move the puppy whelping box into the chicken coop so the pups could go outside. I’m not joking, this thing probably weighs 200 pounds. It’s a 6’x6’ wood box made from plywood and 2x4s. Two grown men moved it from the garage into my house right before Runa had the puppies and said this must be the royal suite of all whelping boxes. I decided to put on my own cross fit class and move it end over end from the pergola into the chicken coop. I was super proud of myself because I got it all the way into the coop and all I had to do was turn it 90° and then lay it down.
As I was laying it down, one of the hinges came loose. I’m sure it came loose because I was moving it inappropriately end over end and that’s not the way it’s meant to be moved. As the hinge came loose, the entire weight of the whelping box fell on my thumb snapping it and bending it all the way back towards my wrist. Luckily, I caught it before it hit the rest of my body. I saw the entire thing happen because I happened to be looking up, I was focusing on where I could place the whelping box as I set it down and watched as my thumb bend all the way back towards my wrist, it was pretty gross. However, it did make me think that maybe I didn’t break it and the immediate intense pain I felt was from the soft tissue damage that occurred in the over-extension. In addition, I have fibromyalgia, and my nerves like to freak out when sometimes there’s really not much to freak out about, so I decided to keep working. I moved the box into position on the floor, then brought down everything I needed to get the puppies moved over— fence, food, water, straw, a blanket,--then tarped the top whelping box. Finally, I brought the puppies themselves from upstairs to downstairs taking a couple trips to get them settled in.
Every time I stopped the pain was pretty intense. I decided that maybe I should take a shower and think about how it felt after I was done. I also took some medicine to see if that would help dissipate the pain as well. I hopped in a hot shower grateful for the time to rest. Alas the rest was short-lived because out of everything I had done over the last hour, the thing that hurt the most with my thumb and hand was trying to wash my hair. It almost brought me to tears. I decided I had better drive into town and have a doctor take a look. I called into the urgent care and got an apt. I saw a provider who took an x-ray and said there was no fracture. He said it would probably take 4 to 6 weeks before I felt completely released from the soft tissue damage that incurred with my thumb going backwards. He also said he’s not a radiographer and that radiology was going to take a look at the x-ray and would give me a call if they found anything. They tried to fit me with a splint, but it hurt more then helped so I told them to keep it.
I decided to head to the store to buy some groceries for dinner, because pain or not you don’t waste a trip to town. In the meantime, I got a call from the urgent care. Radiology had indeed found a fracture in my thumb. They wanted me to head to an orthopedic doctor--I called immediately and got an appointment for the next day.
This is me, right before I stepped into the OR as a rep for the first time.
I don’t know how many of you guys know this about me but I used to work for Stryker Trauma Orthopedics. Stryker has many different devices that are available in the hospital--most of you guys have probably seen things like their lights or their beds. However, they also offer surgical implants. I worked in the OR along side doctors as the inserted plates, nails, and screws to fix broken bones. I loved the job but it was incredibly taxing and I had no life. All of the rest of the people in my office were married and I didn’t even have time to date, I don’t know how they did it. There were many nights when I had fallen asleep in my scrubs only to wake up the next morning at 6 AM to call the hospitals to start it all again. I learned a lot but it definitely was not the life for me. I do have some friendships that I made during my time working in the hospital and one of those is with the orthopedic doctors and staff at New Mexico Orthopaedics. And funny thing, my family and I have been there four times in the last five months. The nurse that was checking us in made me feel better about it and said well at least you guys are in active family!
It all started with Starson back in August, he tore his ACL playing basketball. Next up was her 15-year-old kiddo who broke his hand when his fingers got caught between another lineman‘s pads for football. Next up I took a friend into the clinic who had a broken ankle. Finally, we get to my stop in the orthopedic office. I called a friend of mine in the clinic and he was able to take my quick care clinic appointment. He’s a PA who works for a sports med doc. He’s been there for a long time and I knew him before I worked for Stryker. We had mutual friends and formed our friendship talking about agriculture. His family owns a ranch about 2.5 hours outside of Albuquerque and he spends all his free time and vacation on the working cows. We’ve been friends for over 10 years and he’s worked me in for other appointments a couple times. He understands that it’s hard coming in from out of town and has worked with me to see the doctors when I’ve needed to. I was really glad I was going to see a familiar face whenever I went into the clinic.
My friend took a look at my hand and read the x-ray. My pain and the fracture were not matching up. Fortunately, the hand orthopedic doctor was in clinic that day too, right next to us. He was able to confer with the hand surgeon about my fracture, my soft tissue injury, and how to proceed. He also thought it was odd that I had no pain where the fracture was but because of the soft tissue damage was not surprised.
So here we are, my hand is cast and now we play the waiting game to see what it looks like in a few weeks. I’ll be in a cast until the end of the year and then go back to the orthopedic hand surgeon to make sure that the soft tissue damage is doing OK healing in a cast. I had a choice between a cast and splint until they found out how much work I do outside, then they said it was not an option to choose. Cast it is, and I’m glad they decided to cast it because immediately upon getting home I had to head out to feed eight hungry puppies and get some help watering and feeding 75 fowl.
I’m pretty sure as long as it took the boys to help me feed and water the animals is exactly how long it would’ve taken to get help to move that stupid puppy box with their help!
I should take a lesson from these precious sleeping puppies.
At the end of the day I’ve learned that it’s always better to ask for help. Nothing is worth our health, and most of all giving someone a big huge “thank you” is better than feeling guilty about asking for help to begin with. Winter is a good time to take a break, rest in the Christmas season, and enjoy my home and family before I start working hard on my garden next year. There will always be things to do, now I just need to learn to relax.
