Last Wednesday was kind of a tough day at work. Started out good, but then one student acted like a turd and it was downhill from there. I was so looking forward to the family dinner Wednesday night. We needed to talk about upcoming travel plans. My sister in law arrived at the same time as me and it was just going to be the two of us. Ronnie had a ball game, Virgil took their dad to the doctor, Ryan was out of town and Richard canceled for some reason. So, Carlene called Kim, her son's girlfriend, and we decided to make it girl time. Kim was out of school for Easter break so she came up to join us. We had the best time. Laughing, talking, getting to know one another. I hated for the night to end, but I had some shopping that had to be done and Carlene gets up early to drive her grandson to school in north Dallas. Leaving Mi Cocina's, which was delicious!, I headed over to Bed, Bath and Beyond to look at their wine accessories for the wine room. Not finding "just the right thing," I wandered through the store looking at towels, glassware, comforters, sheets for the boys' new room... I was just in one of those shopping moods, but I couldn't find ANYTHING to buy, dang it! Now, with hindsight of 20/20, I think, "If only I had skipped BB&B and just gone home." But I didn't, so that put me on a collision course with pain.
As most people know, Ron and I live in the country. Most of the street names out here are numbers. Anyway, I started home thinking about what a great way the day had ended, about our upcoming anniversary trip to the Grand Canyon (where I've never been) and Vegas (where Ronnie's never been). I reminded myself of a couple of things I needed to take to work with me the next day and the next thing I knew, I was in a world of pain. As I turned off of FM549 onto Rabbit Ridge, there is a 54 acre wooded area off to my right. There is a house in the middle of it, but nobody lives there. It all happened so fast that I have "flashes" of pictures in my head. The first picture is a coyote. He waited until I was right up on him before darting into the road in front of me. I don't care what people say...and there are plenty of them out there with free, unsolicited advice, you would not "just run over him." There's this little thing called instinct and it kicks in. Mine did and I stomped my brakes. In truth, I was probably driving too fast on that road. I usually do. Anyway, stomping the brakes made me start sliding and I lost control of the car. I ended up in the ditch coming to a very sudden stop. I didn't know until Ronnie went back up there today that there is a sawed off tree trunk hiding in those bushes that I hit. Thinking back, I remember hearing and feeling my ankle and knowing that I "hurt" it. At that point, however, I wasn't really in pain. Sitting there for a minute until I calmed down, I still just thought I had run off the road. Didn't really comprehend that the boom sound meant that I had wrecked the car. As I said, it all happened really fast. Warp speed, even. After a minute I thought, "Okay, let me back this thing out of the ditch and get on my way." Well, I got it to go backward, but still not knowing how badly my ankle was hurt, I didn't realize that I had no way to stop it. Thank God for that brick mailbox??? Just after slamming backwards into the mailbox did the pain hit and I realized that my ankle might be broken. I called hubby and said, "Can you come pull me out of the ditch. Oh, and I think that my ankle is broken." He came up, pulled me out of the ditch, somehow managed to get my car parked in the church parking lot and drove me to Presbyterian Hospital in Rockwall.
This is the reason I could not stop my car.
In the first photo you can see where the bone poked through the skin and went back in. And if you think the pictures are icky...you should see the xrays! My shin bone is split vertically...my ankle, where it connects to the shin bone, moved 2 inches up into the shin cavity...there are literally pieces of bone EVERYWHERE!! Bottom line...the morphine didn't phase me and when the feeling started coming back to the foot, it came back with a vengeance. The hospital called the orthopedic surgeon on call and the waiting began. At one point one of the ER doctors came in and got Ronnie and took him out into the hall. She told him that they could not give me any more pain meds and they couldn't wait any longer to align my foot. He was going to have to help her. When they walked back into the room and Ronnie came to my bedside to hold my hand I knew they were about to hurt me. They thought they were being sneaky, but I could see it in my husband's eyes.
To make a long story short, the surgeon came in and about 1:00 a.m. I was rolled into surgery. A couple of hours there and my ankle is back together.
My right ankle is now held together with two steel plates and eleven screws. I'm taking vicodin for pain and sleeping a lot. The hardest part is that I can't put any weight on my foot for the next six to eight weeks. Translation: I can't even go to the bathroom without assistance. Ronnie has to either do everything for me or help me do it. I literally can't even get out of bed by myself. It sucks. I'm used to being the caregiver...it's totally different on the other side of this coin. It is what it is, however, and like it or not, I have to follow the doctor's orders. I will probably lose some of the mobility in my ankle and end up with arthritis...all because a stupid coyote needed to cross the road. Oh yeah, my car is probably a total loss as well.
