Jana laid there for about a week before waking up out of a drug induced coma and when she started to talk she was all happy that she was inside of all of this plaster and asked when I was planning to let her out of it so that she could do the same thing to me ,so I just told her that "we" decided to leave her in there for four to six months , and then take x-rays again to see how things were going .Jana told me that was too long and wanted out now ,she even used our secret escape word , I figured she still had no idea what was up so, I filled her in on all the gory details,and her first reaction was that of disbelief ,shock,et.c.,and then she settled down a bit and I further explained that I did have a hand in casting her injuries and further explained why and so forth.she was somewhat relieved,and somewhat upset that I didn't consult her before proceding with the casting ,in order that she may have wanted some thing different ,and I explained that she was in no condition to be making any decisions at that time and that she was indeed banged up quite badly, and out cold.So she said that she would forgive me this time and fell back into sleep for about an hour and when she came to again she started talking right where she left off ,a bit bizzare me thinks ,but the Doc told me that often happens with injuries of this magnitude and location.
As time ground on,certain casts came off,and Jana started to become more mobile and soon was walking ,sort of , with a walker and sometimes crutches,Doctor MacFergus sugested that braces be ordered for her to help with walking and standing ,so he wrote for a bi-lateral r/g hkafo ,or in english, a reciprocating gait -hip-knee-ankle -foot-orthosis,for both legs . I explained that she already had one ,and he just smiled and said"of course she does,I have seen her wear it at the park by the nature center ,but I wish to have one built that offers a lot more support as she will be wearing this brace for quite some time ".Quite some time?I said "yes "he said ,so I asked what he meant by that and he went on to tell me that due to the injury of the pelvis ,hips and bones of the upper legs ,that there was a great deal of instability and that this orthosis was required to stabilise the healing for a period of from one to possibly seven years depending upon how well she tollerated the brace and on how fast she healed ,and that injuries of this sort were long healers .
So armed with this bit of news I went into Jana's room and presented it to her ,fully prepared to run for cover ,when she started to throw stuff in anger,but to my surprise ,she took it in stride and said that she would do what the Doc told her to as long as it involved braces of some sort .
A the six month mark Jana was not sporting any plaster but did have a really nice set of h.k.a.f.o's that actualy had some back support built-in in the form of a Knight-Taylor back brace with an extension that came all the way up and over her shoulders to a corsette -laced front piece that held it all together ,it did make sitting down a might tricky but she managed,and as I suspected she mended quit rapidly and as such only needed to wear these for about two years .As a result of the accident ,we both dropped out of school until Jana was well enough to handle the riggors of academia once again .Some where durring that time we married and have had a less than boring existance ,more on that later ,but for a few scrapes I have never had to be "in"the hospital and hoped to never have to .At 27 I thought I was doing alright with that plan ,and was working on the house we bought ,fixing the eaves ,so the rain gutters would carry all the rain water to a cistern in the basement ,for washing clothes and so forth ,well any way there was this ladder, and a rather large fellow at the end of it, and ,an unusual attack of gravity,like it doubled or trippled or something and then there was this rather disturbing thud,and well, you guessed it, there I was, "in" the hospital,at least that was what I thought it to be ,but when I attempted to communicate there was no sound just this rythmic whir-click-whir-hiss sound just out of sight range ,which without my contacts was only about 4 centimeters but I could see lights blinking on it or something anyway.The next natural reaction was to find the button ......well that didnt work either,so now what do I do ,I can't move ,can't talk,can't see ,all I can do is just lay here and think,and think I did and before the doctors walked in I had figured out what went so wrong that I ended up in here .Now I really feel stupid ,for having reached for that last screw ,instead of getting down and moving that damned ladder over a foot and going back up.One lousy foot !.oh well I am here and I have a pretty fair idea of the extent of my injuries and they dont seem that bad from what I can tell,I can feel my toes move and my hands and fingers,and arms and legs,but this machine is breathing for me and I have no idea why.now I have an itch on my forehead and cant get my hand up there to scratch it ,and about the time I going over the edge with this infernal itch,the Docs walk in and they look and poke and prod and murrmer and one of them comes over to me and says ,very slowly,I am Doctor Ryerstone how do you feel ? ,well I feel o.k.,but I can't communicate with you at present due to this thing in my mouth,I thought .then he told me about my injuries and I was a bit off in my diagnosis, I thought that I had fractured both legs distal from the knee joint,and maybe an upper arm .all that had happened was ,according to the doc ,I had a sprained body I looked at the doc and just glared as if to say, "youre kidding " he must have understood what I was trying to communicate and simply said " No I am not(kidding)" so I wanted to just ask what he meant by "sprained body"and he must have sensed that which was on my mind and explained that the fall didn't actualy break any thing ,but that I had pulled a bunch of stuff all out of whack and that the only thing they could was to encase me in heavy plaster for from 6- 12 weeks and then into a total body brace for the next year or two .Swell first Jana ,and just when life is getting less complicated for us I fall prey to a sudden attack of flash stupidity and a gravity increase as well or else I was just too lazy or tired to descend ther ladder ,move it over and return to the work possition at or near the top for the last screw and ...oh well there is no sense in beating my self up at this point ,because all of that was now ancient history , and the current fact of the matter was that I was stuck here for the next month and a half to three months ,in plaster ,immobile ,in mega pain ,and now to top of the entire scene ,I have this unbearable urge to pee.
Well when the doc was in the last time ,he put the button into my hand ,awfully nice of him ,I thought,so I pushed it ,and low and behold the nurse walked in and asked a bunch of questions and all I could was blink to respond to them ,and after a brief trial and error period we determined that I needed to "go" and she then explained that all I had to do was ...just...go as there was this catheter installed and it would take care of those types of things .So I went ...and went...and went ... and finaly finished with a major sigh which she noted on a clipboard at the foot of the bed .She then left and returned a short time later with a covered tray and ,just out of sight range set up a something or other and reached for the i.v. tube and the next thing I knew it was four days later and the machine was gone and I could talk...sort of .and the best part was I could partake of one of my favourite passtimes ,eating ,when the nurse came in to my room with the food tray I asked what day it was ,I was rather shocked to learn that it was some nine days since the fall,and that I was recuperating at a rather astounding rate ,or so the doctor indicated .
After about five weeks of this being absolutly immobile they decided to start reducing the cast dimensions and at nine weeks I was sent to p/t to get me back to viable once again. I worked very hard just to walk at first and after many sessions it all came back to me and I was walking ,in braces ,and quite slowly at first ,but walking just the same .These braces were not the ones I had at home but were brand new and light weight ,but very high strength and I liked them for the relative ease with which I could now ambulate and gain strength and stamina and at the 10 week mark the Doc came into my room and started out thus: "Tomorrow we get to get rid of you and get back to "normal" around here and you get to learn how to do a bunch of "new "old things all over again like stairs ,the garden, house work,yard work, and all sorts of mundane things that you once took for granted "
So with that he gave me a bunch of paperwork and left the room ,while he was gone I looked at the paperwork for a bit and discovered that I had to see a p/t and a shrink,and a pain management doc and in six months I had to see an orthotist to get my braces re-adjusted or replaced .Well ,Jana has been so supportive of me throughout this whole ordeal ,and I was with her situation as well and it has just drawn us closer to each and other .We sort of decided to lay off the recreational bracing for a while ,you kmow ,until we were both healed up from our respective mishaps ,and that we didnt actualy need the rec. aspect as we were both in real braces for real reasons and probably would be for some time .
We still hung out at our old haunts and still associated with our rec. brace friends ,that will never change as they were the most supportive of any of our friends ,and we have some pretty straight laced friends who would never think of rec. bracing because "those braces are made just for some one else and they might hurt you if you wear them " (llike we were going to catch polio or scoliosis) but to each his/her own I suppose .
Well, the big day has arrived and I am getting out of this place for the first time in eleven weeks ,and damned happy about it at that .
As for the learning curve , well this is going to take some getting used to and as such will be some what of an adventure in and of its own accord ,but the best triumph was the car and driving once again,Jana had taken me to the mall and we talked through the whole procedure and ,finaly it was my turn to front seat before ,well she just about went into hysterics over the sight of me trying to get behind the wheel with all of this bracing and not being able to move the way I would "normally" but then, for what could possibly have been the next 3 years she was going to have to get used to it ,as would I.
Although it took me a while to actualy get used to these new braces ,once I finally did master things like the car and stairs and the like, it was a breeze ,until,I some how managed to pop a joint bearing in the knee joint area ,wow the whole world get cockeyed all of a sudden when the support that you rely upon so heavily ,goes away,fortunatly I was at home when it happened so I could get to the wheelchair and then to the van and on down to the orthotics lab for repairs ,and relief.But what if I had been out ,at work would not have been a problem ,but say, what if I was in Chicago or Minneapolis , some place quite far from home, and this happened ,then what ?So as long as I was at the orthotics lab I thought I would ask my technician about it and he indicated that there are labs just like this one all over the country and that if I did have any problems that I just find a lab and have the repairs made and have them bill this facillity and it would be all good .And then he asked why I wanted to know all this ,so I explained that due to the injuries and so forth we had acquired over the last two and a half years that we never had a chance for a honeymoon,and so we were planning one and Barry,My tech asked me if, when we had everything planned that we would give him a call and he would put a list together with the preferred labs and contact persons and all the rest of it ,so if Jana or I had any problems along the way we would never be too far away from a lab that does the caliber of work done in this lab ,that kind of help really sets the mind at ease .
So while Barry had my braces apart to fix the broken bearing he went ahead and replaced the whole compliment of that type of joints with a new and better joint,gauranteed to outlast the life of the current braces.and My six month appointment was moved back two months due to schedule conflicts.......
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