Thursday, May 10, 2012

A Broken Man

I live with one. He's kind of like one of those crazy wind-up toys that charges into walls and bounces off, except he doesn't bounce that well. While unloading the garden bed kits for our new community garden last Friday he slipped on the gravel in the parking lot, fell and broke his right elbow.

I was upstairs unloading my cart when it happened. Not easily dissuaded from his duty (the postal service missed hiring someone obviously born to carry the mail through sleet, snow, rain and dead of night), he loaded the half-dozen four foot long boxes on our little trolley and managed to somehow get them through two huge heavy doors with a dangling right arm.

He then got them all on the elevator, except they all kept falling off the trolley, and getting off the elevator he got boxes and trolley wedged in the door. I heard the commotion of falling boxes and elevator bell/buzzer and thought, "What the....?"

Seeing his white face and that weirdly shaped arm made my knees weak. I helped him down the hall and got him seated on the sofa in the living room, then rescued the boxes from the jammed elevator door.

I'd already been out shopping (obviously) and the allergy medication I'd taken earlier had left me shaky, so I called Ian and asked for help. He jumped to and was here in half an hour and we were off to the emergency room.

Long story short, his right elbow is broken. The end of the bone is sheared completely off. But it's a not a break they can set and they are trying to avoid surgery if possible. He's been in a restrictive sling but we saw the orthopedic surgeon this morning and he said that Tony must now begin to use the arm, despite the pain, to keep the elbow from freezing up. Poor old poop. He's not the happiest of campers. It hurts to wear the sling, it hurts to take it off, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move, it hurts period.

He's also a sort of appealing pinto-pony pattern of bruises on his right side and down his leg, minus some skin and seriously shaken up. We bought him some different shoes on the way home from the surgeon's clinic today. Good tread on the bottom, and velcro closures so he doesn't have to mess with laces.

Now all he has to do is heal...

1 comment:

Susan ~ Patchkat said...

Auntie Deb,

The gardens are coming along nicely. I can see the lovely bones of your gravel garden...with the mosses and eventually a few well placed succulents and maybe a statue or two...it will grow up beautifully. Can you look down on it from your balcony? Those roses are wonderful! We have roses, they've already bloomed...now the grasshoppers have stripped them of leaves again.

I hate to read that Tony has taken the fall that hurt his elbow and left him sore and bruised. He's in my prayers for a complete recovery. Having dealt with the implanting of the rod in my arm, I totally understand the inability to find ANY position to be in that offers comfort.

Hugs for you both...keep up the great work on the gardens, but don't over tax yourself. It's great to hear some positive HAPPY posts coming from an old TX country gal! Love ya.

Susan