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My oh my, how life’s plans can change! We woke up Saturday morning, finished packing our RV, and took off for Wisconsin. We planned to attend the wedding of Richard’s childhood friend, and to see relatives and other friends while we were there. We got as far as a nearby park, where we always stop to attach our tow vehicle. The driveshaft decoupler in the tow vehicle wouldn’t engage. It was very new so that was odd. We always allow a few extra days on a road trip so we weren’t terribly concerned. We called the RV place, planned to take the car in on Monday morning, and returned home. I did make a passing comment to Richard about how odd it was that we couldn’t even get out of Bangor, and wondered if we were supposed to take this trip or not. Richard replied, “Yeah, I know.”

That afternoon, we rode with Ali to her new apartment with a load of her stuff. She was going to spend the evening packing up our room and Max and Mason’s rooms. Our rooms were going to be painted and refloored while we were away on our trip. Richard wanted to watch a movie but I talked him into helping me help Ali get those rooms packed up. I’m still feeling guilty about that…

A few hours later, Richard was coming down the attic steps, taking out the trash, and his foot slipped on one step near the bottom. His body twisted around and I’m not sure really what happened after that but we all heard a large THUMP, and then Richard yelling, “I BROKE MY LEG! I BROKE MY LEG!!”

There were about 12 people in the house right then and we all went running. Richard was sitting near the bottom of the stairs, already sweating profusely, and not moving his leg. He has on his work boots but the broken bone was clearly visible just under the skin. His foot was also sitting at a very odd angle.

I called 9-1-1 while Zach watched Richard to make sure he didn’t pass out (he didn’t). Long, long ago, Richard was an x-ray tech and he knew what he’d done. If he moved, his bone might come through the skin and the severe break would turn into a very, very bad situation requiring emergency surgery. He was still sweating and grimacing and he was incredibly brave. He said, “Tell them to hurry. It’s going to break through if I move. Please tell them to hurry. Oh, and somebody get my iPad.”

No, I’m not kidding. He really said that and we all laughed about it…the next day.

Anyway, the older kids had quickly moved all the cars out of the driveway, and were outside, ready to flag down the ambulance. They arrived very quickly and walked upstairs to assess the situation. They had to wrap his foot and shoe in a large pillow and tape it all up. Richard pretty much had to shuffle down the last flight of stairs while one paramedic held his foot and, let me tell you, it was agony for him.

He was in so much pain and I wanted to cry listening to him groan. Max and Mason were there and Frank’s girlfriend, Kate (God bless her), came up to them and said, “Hey, guys. Let’s go play a game!” She whisked them away to protect them from witnessing their father in so much pain.

Once they got him to the bottom, they strapped him to one of those cool little chairs, got him to the ambulance, on the gurney, and whisked him away. I rode with him, of course.

At the hospital, it was quite busy and Richard was dumped on a gurney in a hallway with a red number on the wall. It took 45 minutes for them to triage him and Richard was getting more and more worried because he said if any veins or arteries were affected, he could lose some function in his foot if they didn’t move quickly. He said, “They’re either going to set it or do surgery. I hope they can just set it.”

A nurse finally came along and had to take his shoe off. I thought it needed to be cut off but she said it would be just fine. After she got the shoe off, while torturing Richard during the process (he’d had NO pain killers at all), she clucked her tongue and said, “This is a bad one.” I was starting to get very angry but I bit my tongue so as not to stress Richard anymore.

Things moved very quickly after that. He was given two Vicadin and sent to x-ray. A few minutes later, he was moved quickly to a room. The anesthesiologist came in and said, “Your bones are in many tiny pieces. You should have been taken immediately to trauma.” She then turned and mumbled to herself, “We are going to have a meeting about this one.”

She pulled out the x-rays and showed us what had happened. His tibia and fibula were both broken and both were dislocated from the ankle.

Richard said, “Are you going to set it or operate?”

He looked pretty crestfallen when she said, “Both.”

I got instantly nauseated and was embarrassed when I blurted out, “I’m going to be sick.” That seemed odd to me. I saw the foot hanging at an odd angle and that didn’t bother me. I later saw the bone under the skin a and that didn’t bother me at all, either. Heck, I even took a picture of it. Hearing about it and knowing he faced two immediate procedures sent my worry meter through the roof and I almost got physically ill but I managed to push it back down. He is my best friend and my rock. I love him so much!

They needed to immediately set it to fix the dislocation because his arteries were stretched and risked breaking. He was also at risk of nerve damage if the blood supply was cut off. They just had to wait for the doctor to arrive.

They whisked him off to trauma. As soon as the doctor arrived, they brought in two huge, burly guys to help. I thought, “Oh my gosh! They’re going to sit on him, just like in the movies!!”

No, they didn’t do that. They sedated him (with the same stuff Michael Jackson overdosed on) and pulled on his leg. He yelled out so they stopped and gave him more. They waited a moment and pulled again. He yelled out again. They gave him the rest of the syringe and said they couldn’t give him anymore. He was out cold and didn’t budge when the doctor grabbed his foot and popped it all back into place. The burly guys were there to hold him down if they needed to (they didn’t) but also to hold his entire leg completely stationary while they put a splint on. Just after the doctor set the leg, Richard’s oxygen level dropped and the anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist grabbed his head, cocked it back, and dug their fingertips up under his jaw. One of them then started massaging his chest and talking to him. Seeing them set his leg didn’t bother me at all. Seeing them trying to get him to breathe just about did me in. I was not expecting that and, well, I can’t even find the words to describe how shocked and terrified I was that my husband had stopped breathing. Shaking, I said, “Aren’t you going to give him something to wake him quickly?”

She responded, “This is very fast acting. He’ll wake up any moment.”

Right then, his eyelids fluttered and opened, and he said, “Wow! I could hear voices far, far away! That was weird!”

No, he’d never been sedated before (never broken anything or had surgery, either), and didn’t know what to expect.

They’d said he would feel much better after they set it and they were right. The painkillers didn’t hurt, either. He’s previously been grinding his teeth and very agitated. I noticed a complete change in his mood after he woke up, as you can see here:

Pain meds. Aaahhh…

A few hours later, we were in his room and it was then 5:00 a.m. His surgery was scheduled for late that afternoon. At 7:00 a.m., Zach came to sit with Richard while I went home to try to get some sleep.

I slept for two hours before Zach sent me a message telling me they were going to come get him in 45 minutes. I was dressed and in his hospital room within 17 minutes.

Four hours later, he finally got wheeled away to surgery (sigh…). He came through just fine and…let’s just say airport metal detectors will take on an entirely new meaning for him now. He has 3 screws on the inside of his leg/ankle and seven screws and a metal plate on the outside. There was a small piece also broken off the back but they “didn’t bother with that.”

They said they’d had a hard time waking him up in recovery, which is why it took two hours for him to get out of recovery instead of one. I asked his nurse that night if anything had happened during surgery. She said, “Now that you mention it, yes. The nurses said they had a hard time keeping his SATS up (oxygen levels).”

Turns out the exact same thing had happened during surgery that had happened the night before. I said, “Oh no! Just like last night!”

She replied, “What do you mean?”

I told her what had happened in trauma. She got very upset and said, “Nobody told me about that!”

She ran out to get a monitor so she could keep an eye on his oxygen levels and I stood next to him, watching him sleep. And, yes, he did stop breathing after each snore. I’d thump him and he’d start breathing again. They say he has sleep apnea, which doesn’t mesh well with anesthesia. I spent the next hour obsessing over that monitor and the nurse said later she was watching it closely in the nurse’s area, too. It never went below 93 but they wanted it around 99/100. He was on oxygen the whole time.

The next day, they took him off oxygen but kept monitoring him and the alarm started sounding when it dipped down to 88. I wasn’t there at the time as Zach had relieved me again. It’s a good thing I wasn’t because I’m pretty sure they’d have needed to sedate me!

Anyway, his levels kept dropping so low that the alarm would sound and wake him up. He’d go back to sleep, the alarm would sound again, and he’d wake up again. They finally just turned off the alarm so he could sleep but they kept monitoring him. First thing Monday morning, I called our doctor to get a referral for a sleep study.

On Monday, he was doing very well, making phone calls, eating and in good spirits. The doctor came in and said if he mastered crutches and a walker he could go home! Yea!!!

He didn’t have any trouble with either one and he was home by mid-afternoon. Ali is moving out anyway so she turned her room into his recovery room since it’s downstairs. He can’t put any weight at all on his foot for six to eight weeks and he won’t be “good as new” for about four months. I’m now paranoid about blood clots so I’m making him move frequently. His biggest enemy for the next two months will be boredom so we’re all trying to be as entertaining as we can. I can tell you…there is no shortage of walker jokes in this house!

On a serious note, we’re now absolutely positive that we were not supposed to take that trip. We should have gotten a clue with the car problem. After the broken leg incident, well, let’s just say – we can take a hint!

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