Pfisters and the Hospital: An Irresistable Combination?
I got a phone call last night at 10, literally as I was crawling into bed. It was Shorty telling me he was at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn with Steven and that they thought Steven’s ankle was broken.
I jumped back into my clothes and headed to the hospital. Thankfully, my drive there is only 10 minutes long now as opposed to the 40+ that it used to be. I tracked them down in one of the Emergency examining rooms and found Steven’s friend Garrison with them.
Apparently, Gare had talked Steven into playing two on two basketball (for the first time). They both went up for the ball, collided in midair and came down. Only, Steven came all the way down on to the ground, clutched his right leg and started saying “Ouch.” Gare took one look at Steven’s foot and said, “Dude, we have to get you to the emergency room.”
He also told Steven, “Don’t look at it.” Good call. Picture someone pulling the ankle out of the join then twisting the foot to the right about 60 degrees. That’s what it looked like. The bone had also punctured the skin so there was some bleeding as well.
They were just getting ready to give him morphine when I got there and it was none too soon. He was afraid to put his foot down on the bed so he was holding his leg at the knee to keep his foot in the air. The morphine cut the pain enough that he was willing to put his foot on a pillow. It also made him dopey as hell which was entertaining for us.
They took a set of X-Rays that we got to peek at. They kinda looked like all of the bones were just squished together. There didn’t appear to be any fractures though.
The next step was to put him under for a few minutes so they could push it all back into place. Literally, I think it took them less than a minute to do it. After that, they put a plaster splint on it then took more X-Rays (which looked normal, amazingly enough) and did a CAT Scan.
We were up and down on an emotional roller coaster the whole time. At first, it looked like surgery was definitely going to be needed then it looked like nothing was actually broken and we even entertained the thought that he may be able to go home without getting admitted to the hospital.
The on-call Orthopedist came in at this point and dashed any hopes we had of a quick exit. He said that since the bone punctured the skin, he needed to do surgery to irrigate the area to prevent infection.
It was then about 1 AM and they sent him in to the OR. I was thinking an irrigation didn’t sound like it would take a long time but two hours later, we were still waiting in the all too familiar Surgery Waiting Area. I think we should get reserved seating from now on after all the time we’ve been in there in the last year.
Finally, the Doc came out and said that he did more than an irrigation. When he opened it up, he saw that Steven had shredded his ligaments so he did repair work to stabilize the ankle. There didn’t seem to be any tendon damage which I guess is good. The Doc’s concerned about a patch of skin that got stretched out and may die. If that’s the case, they’ll have to call in a plastic surgeon and do a skin graft. Nice.
Steven finally got to his room around 4:30 AM and Shorty and I made sure he was well on his way to lala land before we left. Coincidentally, he’s in the room next door to where Shorty spent his three weeks at Osborn last year.
Through it all, Steven was remarkably pleasant. He joked with all of the staff and was calm. After he woke up in the room, he got a little cranky but at that point he hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, hadn’t had anything to drink for seven and had been put under twice. I think a little crankiness was understandable.
Two digressions: the admitting doc said I could be Steven ‘s sister (and we all know how I love that) and my Dad ran into someone he used to work with and Steven saw two people he knew. There’s that Phoenix small town factor, again.
I got home at 5:15, fell into bed and was back up at 9:30 to go to work. Shorty was back at the hospital (with my Mom this time) by noon and they’re going to stay until the Orthopedist checks in on Steven. I’ll be heading over there after work. They’ve got Steven off the morphine but still on some good drugs that are keeping him drowsy so he’s feeling little pain right now.
I jumped back into my clothes and headed to the hospital. Thankfully, my drive there is only 10 minutes long now as opposed to the 40+ that it used to be. I tracked them down in one of the Emergency examining rooms and found Steven’s friend Garrison with them.
Apparently, Gare had talked Steven into playing two on two basketball (for the first time). They both went up for the ball, collided in midair and came down. Only, Steven came all the way down on to the ground, clutched his right leg and started saying “Ouch.” Gare took one look at Steven’s foot and said, “Dude, we have to get you to the emergency room.”
He also told Steven, “Don’t look at it.” Good call. Picture someone pulling the ankle out of the join then twisting the foot to the right about 60 degrees. That’s what it looked like. The bone had also punctured the skin so there was some bleeding as well.
They were just getting ready to give him morphine when I got there and it was none too soon. He was afraid to put his foot down on the bed so he was holding his leg at the knee to keep his foot in the air. The morphine cut the pain enough that he was willing to put his foot on a pillow. It also made him dopey as hell which was entertaining for us.
They took a set of X-Rays that we got to peek at. They kinda looked like all of the bones were just squished together. There didn’t appear to be any fractures though.
The next step was to put him under for a few minutes so they could push it all back into place. Literally, I think it took them less than a minute to do it. After that, they put a plaster splint on it then took more X-Rays (which looked normal, amazingly enough) and did a CAT Scan.
We were up and down on an emotional roller coaster the whole time. At first, it looked like surgery was definitely going to be needed then it looked like nothing was actually broken and we even entertained the thought that he may be able to go home without getting admitted to the hospital.
The on-call Orthopedist came in at this point and dashed any hopes we had of a quick exit. He said that since the bone punctured the skin, he needed to do surgery to irrigate the area to prevent infection.
It was then about 1 AM and they sent him in to the OR. I was thinking an irrigation didn’t sound like it would take a long time but two hours later, we were still waiting in the all too familiar Surgery Waiting Area. I think we should get reserved seating from now on after all the time we’ve been in there in the last year.
Finally, the Doc came out and said that he did more than an irrigation. When he opened it up, he saw that Steven had shredded his ligaments so he did repair work to stabilize the ankle. There didn’t seem to be any tendon damage which I guess is good. The Doc’s concerned about a patch of skin that got stretched out and may die. If that’s the case, they’ll have to call in a plastic surgeon and do a skin graft. Nice.
Steven finally got to his room around 4:30 AM and Shorty and I made sure he was well on his way to lala land before we left. Coincidentally, he’s in the room next door to where Shorty spent his three weeks at Osborn last year.
Through it all, Steven was remarkably pleasant. He joked with all of the staff and was calm. After he woke up in the room, he got a little cranky but at that point he hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, hadn’t had anything to drink for seven and had been put under twice. I think a little crankiness was understandable.
Two digressions: the admitting doc said I could be Steven ‘s sister (and we all know how I love that) and my Dad ran into someone he used to work with and Steven saw two people he knew. There’s that Phoenix small town factor, again.
I got home at 5:15, fell into bed and was back up at 9:30 to go to work. Shorty was back at the hospital (with my Mom this time) by noon and they’re going to stay until the Orthopedist checks in on Steven. I’ll be heading over there after work. They’ve got Steven off the morphine but still on some good drugs that are keeping him drowsy so he’s feeling little pain right now.
