Hospital - New Year's Eve

Wednesday turned out to be a pretty busy day. I called my brother early in the morning to let him know. He works in Birmingham and I thought he may come see me on his lunch break. I also called my mom. I had called her the previous morning to tell her we were going dirt bike riding. She said to be careful. I was like, "oh yeah, don't worry... we're pretty careful". I certainly didn't want her to worry but I hated calling her this day to tell her my bad news.

So I had many visitors this day. My husband came back from Huntsville, my brother came at lunch, my sister and her son came later in the evening. The Trussville folks where we were riding came to visit and brought some flowers. All this made me feel better, along with the morphine! I also received visits from tons of hospital staff; the orthopedic surgeon and his nurse came AM & PM, my day time RN & PCA, the chaplain to pray with me, rehab to get me out of bed, the person to fit me for my boot, and others I have probably forgotten.

Dr. B made rounds fairly early in the morning between 8 & 9. His nurse changed the dressing on my foot. It was wrapped in an ace bandage with all the gauze bandages underneath. This was the first time to see my foot since surgery and hear the status. Dr. B said "You dang nearly tore off your foot, girl". He talked his doctor jargon but this is what I grasped. Four broken metatarsals. I only have 10 and only 5 in that foot!! So now there are 4 of my 5 that are broken, #'s 1, 2, 3 & 5. 4th dislocated toe. So Dr. B also says "You pretty much affected every phalanges." I came to find out later in Huntsville that I also broke a 3rd proximal phalanges; so 5 broken bones. That would explain the open fracture above the 3rd toe. Maybe this doctor told me, maybe I quit listening after hearing 4 broken metatarsals. The doc talked of cleaning sock fibers out of the open fracture so he thought he got it pretty clean but stressed it was a major source for infection. He said he didn't put in any hardware (pins, wires, plates, screws) in my foot. I guess he didn't feel the need. Also, said I scared the ER doctor. I didn't detect that fear at the time and it's a good thing. It's probably not good for the medical people taking care of you to be more scared than you are. I don't remember everything else Dr. B said to me.

This is the only picture I have taken of my foot. Quality is not so great because it was with my cell phone. Don't you love technology? According to my cell phone, the picture posted was taken at 8:07AM. Tells me what time the doc came in that morning. The yellow stuff is the wonder stuff called XEROFORM. The red piece sticking up is bloody XEROFORM. They cut a small piece off and stuck it down in the open fracture. The other piece is over the stitched up gash. I call it wonder stuff because it didn't stick to my foot, and it served as a protector for infection. It's really sticky wonder stuff!

The package says Petrolatum Dressing -- Fine Mesh Gauze Impregnated with 3% XEROFORM (Bismuth Tribromophenate) in a Petrolatum Blend. They gave us a bunch of it to take home for my daily dressing changes.

The guy that came to fit me for my boot sized up my foot and said I might take a small or a medium. My foot looked huge to me. It was swollen plus wrapped in gauze plus an ace bandage so I didn't think it looked like he could squeeze it into a small and I certainly didn't want him to try. The morphine wasn't that good for pain. So he agreed when I coaxed him towards the medium boot.

I had called hubby before he left from Huntsville to tell him to bring me some clothes, especially underwear. As soon as they would remove the catheter I wanted to have underwear back on my naked self (underneath the hospital gown). I also asked him to go to Wal-Mart to find pants that were stretchy and large in the legs to fit over my injured foot and the boot. He found a pair in the active wear department that worked out perfectly.

The rehab person brought me a walker later in the day. After I had a walker, the catheter was removed so I could then make my way to the bathroom when needed. It didn't hurt to remove the catheter. Maybe morphine helped out with that, too.

Dr. B and his nurse also came back to visit in the early afternoon since it was New Year's Eve.

So even though I didn't have any New Year's Eve plans for 2008, I hope I never have to spend another New Year's Eve in the hospital. That's just not the way to welcome the new year.