Posted By AmyD. on January 25, 2006

The story of how I broke my ankle isn’t nearly as interesting as the recovery period. That year marked the first Halloween that I didn’t Trick-or-Treat with my kids. Instead we watched scary movies and ate candy. We watched “The Blair Witch” project that year…

A week after my unfortunate accident at the lake I was wheeled into surgery where an orthopedic surgeon reconstructed my ankle. I ended up with a plate and six screws. Typically, this was the kind of surgery that kept you in a hospital for 2-3 days… I opted for some out-patient thing and was home recovering within an hour of coming out of surgery.

The next 48 hours was a complete blur. I had some strange reaction to the anesthesia which left me with the worst migraine headache I have ever experienced and puking every 20 – 30 minutes. Mike picked up my pain prescription where the pharmacist scared the hell out of him by telling him I would be in “excruciating pain” and that it was imperative to make sure that I had my pain pills on time (including waking up in the middle of the night) and to back up the pain pill with advil in between dosages. On top of that I was given an antibiotic for something or other…

In between upchucking constantly and a brain-bleeding headache my husband, petrified that I was going to come-to screaming my head off and writhing in pain, was cramming pills down my throat with all the punctuality of a swiss watch. He’d leave the room and I’d get the VCR version of my dosage… that’s where someone hit the rewind button in my stomach and the pills ended up in the bucket next to the bed.

Mike also took over the role of managing the household and children with a seriousness that he had not shown before (or since) which meant that he was bustling around the house, cleaning and cooking like a mad-man. Since I was in bed, leg elevated (leg inside cast itching like a you-know-what because of an allergic reaction to the medical tape they used) at the end of the house farthest from him, puking and wishing someone would either smother me or blow my head off, he left me with (I kid you not) a pot and pan…

To puke in? Hardly.

Nope, these were to bang together (with a migraine) to gain his attention so that he could come attend to whatever I needed. Which I did… and he still didn’t hear it. I think I might have ended up throwing them down the hall finally hoping to hit someone or something loud enough to get attention.

The flip-side to this is that I am a lousy patient. I put my mom and husband through hell for the next few weeks. I don’t like feeling useless or out of commission… I can’t stand being waited on, and I have NO patience to speak of.

Anytime this black time in our lives is brought up my husband breaks out in cold-sweats, screams “FRESH WATER….” and runs from the room.

He would dutifully put a glass of water on my nightstand while I slept, twenty minutes later I would wake up (having no concept of time because of the medication I was on) assume it was hours or even days later and insist on a “fresh” glass of water because the water tasted funny. He would swear to me that this was a new glass of water and I would proceed to say unladylike things at an eardrum splitting volume to him until he scurried from the room to bring me a new glass. I’m fairly certain that all he did was walk into the kitchen with the glass and turn around and come back with the SAME water… because it STILL tasted funny, damn it.

One of my good friends insisted on coming by to check on me, even though she was told it wasn’t such a hot idea. She brought me a book and walked into the bedroom as I was yakking my brains out for what felt like the hundredth time, I don’t think I actually saw anything other then her shoes from the side of the bed. If it weren’t for the new book on the nightstand I would have assumed that I dreamt her visit.

My poor mother showed up for the day shift while Mike was at work. She would make me breakfast (one morning she decided to change things up by adding pepper or something to my scrambled eggs… that didn’t work out so well) straighten up around my room and attempt to help me look somewhat presentable. My mom’s theory has always been that if you LOOK better you automatically FEEL better too.

My mom recently got my brother over the flu by telling him constantly how great he looked and making him get up and get dressed and do his hair, he’d walk into the room looking like warmed over death and she’d say, “Wow, Garett, you look REALLY good.” He’d say, “Really, because I don’t feel so great” and she’d go on to convince him how wonderful he looked. But, seriously, he looked like death. He probably got over it just to get away from her. I feel for the kid.

No amount of make-up and hairwashing would have made me feel better then. By that time a nasty post-anesthesia depression had set in and I was convinced that my life was over, I was permanently disabled, and worse yet, was completely disfigured because of the two 6 inch scars running up either side of my right ankle.

Somewhere along the line my mother roped my sister into “dealing” with me. She’d come over and help me take a shower or bath (with a cast). We got it pretty wet and Mike had to come home and drag out the air compressor to try and dry it out, it gave new meaning to the term, “bone chilling.”

I was still on crutches at Christmas time. Meg, my sister, came over to help me put up all the Christmas decorations because at that point Mike had had enough and was on strike.

To this day anytime we go out and do something active like hiking, fishing, camping, or even out for a walk, Mike picks at me almost constantly reminding that I’ve got a “$5,000.00″ ankle and he has no intention of paying anymore for it or another one.

I’m thinking it has less to do with the cost of the repair than it does the recovery period.

Related Tags: orthopedic surgery, anesthesia, recovery, broken bones, migraines, fishing

Categories: Stupid Husband Tricks, Stupid Wife Tricks
Tags: ankle, broken ankle, cast, fresh water, recovery, surgery