One Week Ago Today......

It's been one of those weeks. Not the kind that I'd wish upon anyone, especially during the holidays. My 'day off' last Monday didn't quite turn out the way I had envisioned it.

I had my list, I was checking it twice and knocking off the "to do's" in an efficient manner..... until 12:33PM. That's when it happened, I came tumbling down.... literally. After that, well let's just say, I've been held prisoner at VGH & now I'm a prisoner at home!

12:33pm Dec.22nd - Izzy falls (spectacularly I might add) in the parking lot of Rob's place of work. Gifts & peanut brittle were safely delivered prior to my spectacular dive. I knew I'd done a number on my leg, I heard the "snap" as I went down.

12:55pm - Ambulance finally has negotiated the treacherous roadways and arrived to assist me. Meanwhile, Rob has called Norbert at the office to let him know what's happening.

1:20pm - Ambulance finally arrives at VGH with me strapped down tighter than a drum
and cursing a blue streak!

I lay on a stretcher, in the halls of VGH, (not in emerg) and am just waiting until someone picks up my chart to check me out. Nothing can be done until you've been seen, so there I lay, in my cold wet clothes with a broken ankle, in shock and in pain with no relief in sight.

I'm not quite sure of the time, but I think around 3pm I finally told Norbert to find someone, I really needed to go to the bathroom! and soon! Around 3:20 a nurse came by and wheeled the stretcher into room #8 of the emergency ward where she kindly helped me out of my wet cold clothes, put me into a gown, let me use the toilet and then promptly put warm blankets on me and inserted an IV. She could see immediately that I needed attention. After that it was rides to x-ray (twice!) and morphine to ease the pain. Yeah right!

At one point I was moved from room #8 to room #11, this is where I was 'put under' for a short period of time. The Dr. had to manipulate the foot and ankle to set the ankle 'temporarily'. The bulk of the work needed to be done in surgery. When I woke up a short 20 minutes after I was in a temporary cast and it didn't look good & at this stage but they were officially starving me in case they could squeeze me into surgery that night.

I had to move again from room #11 to a room marked DVC, not sure what that was but again was sent to xray and then had some scans done. At 8pm I was moved to a room in the Orthopedic Trauma ward. At 8:30pm, they came to say that I wasn't going to have surgery and could have something to eat. I ended up with a cup of tea and a tuna sandwich.

I sent Norbert home with a list of things to bring back for me and things to do.... mom & dad were arriving the next day! Poor guy was exhausted and worried sick about me.

Tuesday December 23rd - I'm on the list again for surgery, so I'm being starved again. All day long!! nothing, nada, zip! just an IV full of saline solution and morphine to keep me going.

It was a pretty long day, with not much happening for me. Mom & dad did arrive, we managed a visit after they settled in and had dinner with Norbert. Again at 8:30pm the nurse came to tell me that my surgery had been cancelled. It wasn't looking good at all.

Christmas Eve day - I want to go home! I've had it! but the surgeon appeared at 8am and informed me that I'd be making my way to pre-op between 10am & 11am! Hallelujah!

True to his word, they did come for me at 10:30am, I called Norbert to let him know that I was headed to surgery, don't come to the hospital until I call. Well I was IV'd up, marked up, head cap on and ready to roll into the operating theatre at 11am when...... yup you guessed it! my surgery was delayed due to an emergency. This happened twice to me that day!

I finally went into surgery at 3:30pm and came out at 6:30pm. Can you guess how happy I was to be spending my Christmas Eve.... in VGH, drugged up.

My parents & Norbert came to see me around 10pm that evening. I had insisted that they carry on with the plans for the day and evening. They were troopers, even with the terrible snow storm happening outside all day long, they managed to get out and about as well as setting up things for me at home. In the hopes that I'd be there for the holidays. They had a nice xmas eve dinner and Charles came over too!

Christmas Day - you can imagine how badly I am wanting to get out of the hospital. The surgeon came to see me around 8am - I told him I was going home for Christmas dinner. So I had to prove that I could manage, I had to do an hour of "tricks" with the wheel chair, walker & crutches. Once they were satisfied that I could manage and I wasn't one my own, they released me! I made it home for Christmas dinner!

So the long and short of this whole thing.... I broke my right ankle in two places, I now have two plates, pins and screws holding my ankle together. I'm in a cast, I can't walk, I have strict orders to keep the leg elevated for two weeks, no weight on the foot at all! and I'm going back to the Orthopedic Trauma Centre on January 6th to have the cast changed. Looks like I'm going to be out of action for quite some time.

Norbert has rented me a wheel chair & walker so that I can at least get around somewhat in the apartment but that's about it for the time being. I'm currently in the bed with the laptop checking emails and trying to keep some sanity. I'm not one to be just 'hangin' around'. I'll be going a little stir crazy in the next while.

And as crazy as all this is..... I managed to still take a photo a day!! okay, not me, but I insisted that Norbert take photos of me throughout this whole ordeal. I'm a scrapbooker after all!! Here's the one of the temporary cast... I'll get the rest of them sorted and uploaded later.
So feel free to email me, I'm not going anywhere! and I'll need something to occupy me while I'm on strict bed rest for the next two weeks.