The back corner of my back yard is a mess. This due to the previous owners tearing down a shed and leaving cinderblocks and bricks piled up for weeds to grow on. I decided fourth of July weekend to turn this back corner into a patio. Robert and I started to move all of the bricks and cinderblocks so we could dig the foundation for patio and necessary retaining walls as this part of the yard is lower and shows evidence of of collecting all the good soil from the rest of the yard. Robert had to work so I spent several hours Monday the fourth finishing moving the bricks. I then borrowed a sledge hammer to break up some pieces of the old shed foundation that were still standing. With all the junk out of the way I started to dig. There was only about two-three inches of good rich dirt before I hit a layer of blocks that were pare of the old shed, so I started to clear them off since they would work fine to use in the new patio. as I worked along clearing about 6ft square I started to encounter hugh bamboo roots every several inches that had to be dug around and pulled out. Around 10:30 two hours after I had started working Robert finnally returned to help.
I got Robert to help me empty the barrel full of dirt I had collected. Then I asked him to help me dig. We have two shovels a little flat one good for edging and a large spade shovel. Robert chose the little shovel and started digging at the edge of the cleared area. I was a little urked because I did not think he was trying hard enough. So after a minute of him not getting any where because there was a root I grabbed the other shovel.
I stepped out about 6inches from the dug area, where the gound seemed a bit softer and said "No you dig like this."
I jumped on my shovel to get a hole started and the shovel hit so many roots that it only went in about half an inch. I however had put enough energy in that I rebound off of the shovel onto my feet on the ground. My right ankle collapsed and I fell backwards.
Falling, I leaned to the left and threw my hands out to try to catch my balance. My left hand hit the ground and I tried to balance on it but, it was in a hole with a bump on the left end of the bottom of the hole. My hand starts to slide and rotate inward towards my body and I see it is at a very odd angle, then I hear a click as my fall finishes into a roll to the left ontop of the trapped hand.
My ankle and wrist ache a little so I roll over to look at my wrist and realise that my watchband is at a funny angle because my arm has a zigzag in the middle of the band. I tell Robert that I think we should go to the ER because I think I just broke my wrist. He replys are you sure it is not just sprained. I look at him past the shovel which is still standing where I jumped on it, look at the wrist and say no we are going now! As we are getting in the car I realise we have no idea where the hospital is. So knowing it is the day of fireworks we stop at the park to ask one of the police directing traffic directions to the hospital.
I help Robert read signs going to Doctors Community Hospital through tears and chattering teeth. The nurses are quite quick to help people who are crying especially since it is early enough in the day that there are few people in yet, I guess drunks and explosives don't start till near dark. They put on a temporary splint and send me to get xrays to determine if I will need surgery.
The xray techs look doubiously at the split and ask where I got it I tell the it is from the nurses so the grumble and say they won't take it off but it will interefere with the xrays. THey take two xrays with my hand flat down. and develop them. I hear more grumbling about the splint and get up and go around into the tech area. They say "we can't see any thing with the splint but it does not appear to be broken. You can't tell its broken just by the amount of pain, you know". I point out the obvious spot where the bones are over lapping and one of them says you don't know how to read xrays thats normal, but she agrees to do another xray, from the side this time so the splint will not interfere.
We are sent back to the waiting room but noone will allow me to have any water because I might need surgery. Eventually I am brought into a treatment room and then we have to wait another half hour because they have lost my xrays. A doctor orders copies made, which have to be sent back for being unreadable and finally sends the copies to a surgeon for his opinion. Apparently the opinion of the surgeon is that she should try to set it and if it does not work then send me to the OR. So she tells me that she is going to give me a narcotic and I ask which one because percoset make me feel sick she orders the nurse to give me two tylenol with codine and some crackers and juice, so I don't throw up. The nurse asks if I want a sandwich instead. I say "no, crackers are fine" and she returns with a cup of very sweet apple juice and graham crackers. After all that sugar and being dehydrated, I send Robert to see if he can get me water but, the doctor tells Robert I am not allowed to have water because I still might need surgery. The doctor waits till I have a buzz and injects 30ml of 2% Lidocaine in the area of the break. This is probably more painful than anything up to that point. My arm was very dirty, almost black with dirt in some spots but she only cleans the spot right around where she injects, using an alcohol swab that she opened with her teeth.
Sitting waiting for the lidocaine to start working I notice there are a number of nurses staring at my arm amazed that I seem fairly mellow about it. Eventually the Lidocaine kicks in and a nurse and doctor play tug o'war with my arm to put the bone back in place. Around this time my tongue starts to tingle and go numb like it does at the dentist, which seems a bit strange since the injection was in my wrist not my mouth. I tell a nurse and then notice I am also starting to get hives on my chest. I am wheeled into the xray room to see if they set the arm well enough. In that room a nurse runs up to give me a shot of benadryl then they take two more xrays (1,2).
I return to the other room they mess with the alignment a bit more then the doctor stands there holding my arm in place for half an hour, while nurses go off to find splinting material. I mention that my throat seems to be closing up and they give me a shot of epinephrin.
We eventually get out of the ER and head to a DnD meeting we were late for.
The next day I went to the orthopedist to get a cast but he also declined to clean the arm. I showed him the xray copies from the fourth, which he let me keep but, I did not get to keep the three new xrays he took.
A week later I was back for more xrays and a new smaller cast, but no answers to my questions. When they took off my cast I had some very amazing bruises(canary yellow) and it looked like my hand was no longer in the normal position on my arm, like the distortion I had seen right before the snap was permanent.
