Bad Breaks

What an exhilarating few days we have had here in West Virginia. We finally secured an appointment with a surgeon on Wednesday. (Helpful hint: Don’t break anything on the Saturday of a three day weekend.) Our appointment was at 2pm and we arrive on schedule. The waiting room was rather full and after about forty minutes, it became apparent that everyone there was waiting to see the same doctor.  Seems some emergency had taken place and he was running hours behind schedule.  These things happen, but since the front desk staff knew about it, we all wondered why no one told us. 

When we finally got in, Cindy’s doctor thought she had a knee problem until he realized he was in the wrong room. When he came back he thought Cindy was there to have her stress fracture looked at, an honest mistake, until he saw her limp wrist and swollen fingers.  Finally he looked at the right x-rays and said that it was a messy set of breaks and that he would have to insert a titanium plate and then try to connect all the bone fragments with pins to the plate. I’m sure he said a lot more but I was practically passed out by then. (I’m not good with things like injuries and blood.)

He scheduled the surgery for today and told us to go to the hospital on Thursday to pre-register and get a ‘few’ tests done. It turned out that those few tests included an EKG, Chest X-Ray, Urine sample and two vials of blood to be tested for god knows what. This involved another lovely two hours at the hospital, where everyone was genuinely nice and kind but no one could really say why all those tests were required to set a broken wrist!  When it was all done we had an exit interview with a really wonderful guy who asked all the necessary questions and was witty and intelligent. We liked him a lot, especially when we found out he taught Music at San Jose State, but disliked him as soon as he said we had to be at the hospital at 0630 the following morning.

At 0dark hundred hours this morning I was up and getting ready by the glow of a night light in the bathroom. Cindy had not slept well and was up at 4am for meds and was now sleeping soundly so I wanted her to get as much rest as possible. At six I woke her, helped her dress and we were on the road at 0620 and arrived at exactly 0630. We were taken back immediately, it was just the two of us, a night watchman and a few nurses. They prepared Cindy for the surgery, checking her vitals and once again asking all of the same questions they had asked the day before.  At 0745 she was wheeled away to the OR and I was given a little card that had a number that represented Cindy. The waiting room has a screen where all the numbers are listed and it is color coded so as to let you know where she is in the process.

Cindy was under the knife for three hours and finally her status on the board changed to post op, which I had been told would last for twenty minutes until they took her to recovery. Her doctor, who we both really like, came to talk with me and said that all had gone very, very well. There was much that had to be done but he felt very good about how it all went and that her recovery would be faster then he originally had thought. All wonderful news!

Cindy is resting now, having been able to eat some scrambled eggs and toast and half a banana. She is one tough cookie and I am confident that she’ll be up and about by the end of the weekend.  Let me thank all of you who have written to Cindy. It makes a big difference and she is very lucky to have such good friends.  

Here is a picture that while not capturing her native beauty, certainly captures her essence. (Who knew that the surgeons would throw in a free tattoo!    Best wishes,  William (Cindy could not edit this so all horrible things herein are my fault!)

That is a thumb up, I think!