A trip delayed, a trip begun

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By now, Nov. 2nd we thought we would be adding to this blog from Prague, the Czech, but events overtook plans resulting in one trip being delayed and another, a trip of healing begun.

Today, October 5th, was not a good day. It started off all right, but ended up badly. I drove to Bowie this morning to have an MRI that I will send to Johns Hopkins so they can check on the acoustic neuroma. I then drove home and did some work around the house.

In the afternoon I went to the back yard to continue pruning the two smaller apple trees. All went well until I lost my balance. I was about seven or eight feet above the ground. Once I realized that I could not stay on the ladder I jumped figuring that landing on my feet was better than landing on my head, shoulder, or whatever.

I did land on my feet and fell to the ground. At first I thought I was all right and then noticed a deep gnash above my right knee. My first con-cern was that an artery might have been cut. However, not seeing any spurting blood, I knew and was thankful that had not happened.

Nancy was not home, but was working at the Outreach Center on West Washington Street. I could not stand, as the pain was too great when I tried to get up. So I slid across the back yard, opened the door and then slid down the stairs to the basement and across the floor, got the tele-phone and dialed 911. After giving them the information on where I was and what had happened, I called Nancy.

The ambulance was at our house in about three minutes. The speed at which they arrived surprised me. Three men came down the back steps and checked me over. Once they determined I could be moved, they put me on a board and carried me to the ambulance and drove to the hospi-tal.

I was taken directly into one of the emergency examination rooms and a doctor soon came to check me over.

“Are you a Red Sox or Yankee fan?” he asked.

“Well, between those two teams I am a Red Sox fan,” I replied.

“Good,” he said, “then I can work on you.”

He grew up in Massachusetts and has been a Red Sox fan all his life … a long-suffering fan I suppose as the Red Sox had disappointed their fans so many times until a year or so ago. Well, in actuality, I guess they were disappointed in the final analysis this year, though their knocking the Yankees out of the playoffs surely is comforting to their fans.

He stitched my leg and said that he thought here was no damage to the ligaments as I could move my leg. By that time Nancy had arrived. She drove me home after I was released.

-The next morning, the 6th, our ever attentive family physician Dr. K called. I was so surprised to hear his voice and thought “How did he find out Bill was injured yesterday?” But when he started to talk he told me instead that he was happy to say Bill’s MRI (of the brain) had showed the neuroma continues to be ‘dead’ and everything was fine. I asked, “Would you like to know how he spent the rest of his day?” He gasped when he heard Bill had fallen off a ladder and asked about his condition in a very strained voice. With relief after he heard that he was hurting but in general fine, he said another of his patients had fallen from a lad-der several weeks before and was paralyzed from the neck down. We had already realized how fortunate Bill was to escape with bruises and a cut but this made it even clearer.

Two times in the next week my knee ‘collapsed”. The first time I almost fell down a flight of stairs but Nancy grabbed my arm and jerked me back as I was falling. A few days later I was climbing the steps from our basement to the kitchen. After turning on the landing I stepped up and my right knee simply collapsed and began bleeding.

“That should not have happened,” I thought. The knee should not have collapsed and the wound should not have begun bleeding after a week. The bleeding was more of a concern to me.

“Let’s go to the emergency room and find out what is going on,” I told Nancy. We checked with our family physician who said it would be fine to go that evening or the next morning depending on how Bill felt.

So, we spend most of the night at the emergency room. The doctor on duty examined my leg. “The bleeding is no problem,” he said, “I am sure it is from a hematoma in the knee. But the area above your knee is just a big hole. You must go see a orthopedic surgeon. I think the quadriceps is torn.”

I was not surprised when he said this as it accounted for the collapse of the right knee.

Early in the morning I called a friend, “J”, who knows the local medical doctors quite well and asked, “Who is the best orthopedic surgeon?” I jotted down his name and with some help was able to see him the same day. He really overextended himself in order to squeeze us into a very busy day at his practice but he acted as if he had all the time in the world to examine me and talk to us.

“He can work miracles,” J had said. J had gone on to tell me that he is a wonderful surgeon and man, friendly, a real people person, and one of the foremost orthopedic surgeons in our state if not the nation. I found her words to be true.

My first appointment with Dr. McD was on Wednesday, October 12th, ex-actly one week after the accident. He examined my leg, took three x-rays and gave me an order for an MRI. “At least your knee cap is in place,” he said, “you do not have as bad a problem Bill Clinton.” Frankly I did not know that Bill Clinton had a knee problem. He mentioned Bill Clinton several times during the examination. At my next appointment with him I asked, “Did you operate on Bill Clinton?”

“I thought I was going to,” he replied, “but at the last minute they called in someone else.”

I had the MRI the next day and took it with me at my next appointment on Monday, October 17th. He looked at it, “Yes,” he said, “pointing to one of the frames,” the quadriceps is torn away. You will have to have an operation to reattach it.”

“When can I have the operation?” I inquired.

“Tomorrow,” he replied.

“Tomorrow!” Nancy exclaimed, “how can you schedule it that fast.”

“I was sure last Wednesday that Bill would need an operation and I al-ready scheduled the operating room for him.” He smiled as he said this. The MRI had only confirmed what he had suspected during his examina-tion of my knee.

The operation was scheduled in the afternoon at three o’clock. I arrived at the hospital about one to check in and go through the pre-op proce-dures. There was a slight delay in the schedule and a little after three Dr. McD and the anesthesiologist came in the room. They asked me the normal questions, like, which leg are we to operate on.

Dr. McD took out a pen and marked my leg. “Aren’t the stitches evidence enough as to which leg you are to operate on?” I teased him.

He laughed before answering, “The law says I have to mark the spot of the operation.” He marked an “M” just above the stitches.

By this time an intravenous had been inserted into my hand and fluid was being fed into my vein.

“Now,” the anesthesiologist said, “I’m going to give you a cocktail.”

He took a syringe and injected the “cocktail” into the intravenous and be-fore I could say Jack Robinson three times I was in la-la land. I do not remember being moved from the pre-op to the operating room. My next memory was waking and feeling a severe pain over my right knee.

A nurse appeared and after assuring that I was awake enough to answer questions asked, “Are you in pain?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“On a scale of zero to ten, zero being no pain and ten being the most se-vere pain, where are you?”

“Eight,” I replied.

“I’ll give you a morphine shot,” she said. She injected the morphine into the intravenous. “I can’t let you out of the recovery room until we have the pain under control.”

By the time I was wheeled out of the recovery room I had received two or three more intravenous pain shots. I do not know if they all were mor-phine or a combination of other pain control drugs. I didn’t particularly care, as the control of the pain was my primary concern. When I was wheeled out the pain was about a three on the scale of zero to ten. Once out of the recover room I was on my way home in about thirty minutes … Nancy driving, of course.

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Photos

Thirteen staples
Count them and it is still thirteen. Ouch!

The knee, 30 Days Later
Thirty days after the operation.

The Knee 7 Months Later
May, 2006