My Tragic Hip

What follows is a two-week account of a hip injury. Obviously, I wasn’t able to blog about it at the time, so this is a bit of a “cheat” written after the fact and re-created to the best of my ability.

Sunday, October 10, 5 PM – Holy Shit! WTF!!

“Could someone find my glasses, and help me sit up?” I say to no one in particular. My face is shmucked into some gravel and downhill from the rest of my body. A woman is walking up the path from a parking lot. She tells me she’s a nurse, puts my glasses back on my face, and holds me upright in a sitting position. A minute ago my chair and I were on the walking trail with my son, getting up close and personal with some grape vines. I didn’t notice the dip in the pavement. The chair and I go down hard and I scream in terror. Now I’m chattering nervously, trying to prove I don’t have a head injury. I hope witnessing my fall didn’t traumatize my poor son. Normally, I play down any bumps or bruises I incur as a result of being Mompty-Dumpty. Now, I’m waiting for an ambulance. I feel like I could barf.

Monday, October 11, 1 AM

I’m in the ER now. My son has just left after feeding me two containers of yogurt. My hands are swollen, rapidly turning blue and green, and absolutely useless. Am I close to Covid patients? X-rays reveal my right hip is broken. When the nurse tells me I’ll likely stay in the ER until my surgery at 11:30 AM the next day, my son goes to my home and collects my various medications. I decide to go on a catheter rather than a bed pan, mostly because a student nurse once put one under me backwards, and I ended up with a painful pressure sore. The night passes slowly while the heart monitor on the woman in the next cubicle beeps regularly. I’ve never felt more helpless or vulnerable. I practice some deep-breathing techniques I just learned from an Andrew Weil book on Audible. I live from one hour to the next.

Monday, October 11, 2 PM

I’m struggling to wake up after my surgery. Rather than fix the broken bone, the surgeon simply installed a new joint, which is just a 30-minute procedure. When I had open heart surgery 11 years ago, I reacted badly to the anaesthetic. This time they gave me a spinal block and sedated me, instead of intubating me under a general. As a result, I’m waking up fairly easily. At this point, I’m still too groggy to be grateful they listened. When I’m alert enough they take me to a private room on the orthopedics unit. I have no way to entertain myself: no TV and no cell phone (obviously).

Tuesday, October 12, 4 AM

Still living one hour at a time. They wake me up every two hours to change my position and take my vitals. For pain relief they offer me regular strength Tylenol – which I don’t even take for a headache because it’s so useless – or OxyContin – which is highly addictive. Nothing in between the two extremes. Since it only hurts when they roll me back and forth, and I can breathe through it, I take nothing for pain.

Tuesday, October 12, 10 AM

I’m clearheaded enough to take note of the pills on the spoon before they put it in my mouth. I ALWAYS check first, even when I’m home. It’s astonishing how many mistakes I find. This time is no different. They’ve given me too much of my blood pressure medication, and a blue pill I’ve never seen before. I refuse to take them and insist they use the ones in the roll my son brought me from home. The nurse and I figure out what happened. Instead of using the updated med list I gave them when I was first admitted, the hospital pharmacist used a list they had on file from my last hospitalization, 11 years ago. I tell the nurse the correct dosage. The one blue pill turned out to be a “more convenient” substitute for the bladder medication I normally take twice a day. My family doctor and I spent six months figuring out the right dose. I am seething privately about the institutional stupidity of the hospital, but at least I made my point and I’m taking the correct meds. I wonder how many other mistakes are made? My distrust is well-founded.

My left hip hurts almost as much as the right one. In fact, I’m kinda sore all over from the fall down the embankment. I realize this was no “little old lady, slip and fall in the bathroom” injury, but a scary and bad-ass one.

I’m desperate to go home ASAP. I’m so vulnerable. The longer I stay here, the greater the chance of something else going wrong. What if I catch Covid? They decide at 2 PM that I can go home, but it must be by ambulance. Every ambulance in the city is already booked or must be available for emergencies. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 13, 10 AM

I’M HOME!! My hands are still swollen and nonfunctional. I must be fed. I can’t use my TV remote and phone. It’s too hard to eat in bed so I decide to be up in my chair for every meal.

The incision on my sweet ass, one-week after the staples were removed. They tell me it looks great!

Thursday, October 14, 8 AM

The PSWs arrive as usual. Something’s wrong with my voice. I seem to have laryngitis but no sore throat. My hands don’t work and I have no voice.

Friday, October 15, 7 PM

After a coughing fit I decide to contact a provincial, fee-for-service website that will put me in touch with a Nurse Practitioner, in the hope of being prescribed an inhaler. I regret it immediately because hoarseness is a symptom of Covid. I get the inhaler, but now I’m in isolation until a test proves I don’t have it. My hands don’t work, I have no voice, and I’m not allowed visitors. Any worker who comes into my room must wear a face shield, mask, gown and gloves. Will the challenges never end? I can’t seem to catch a break. Two days go by before an Extramural Nurse arrives with the test. 48 hours later I’m finally good to go. Every day from here on in, gets a little better.

Sunday, October 24, 3 PM

My hands are back to normal, which means I can feed myself, go down to the dining room for meals, use my TV remote and the phone. I feel empowered. After 14 days my staples finally come out – all 27 of them. The LPN tells me most hip surgeries have 12 to 14. Many things get easier once the stables are gone. It doesn’t hurt as much when they roll me on my right hip. My bladder control improves. I can wiggle in my chair without pain.

At the two-week mark I feel pretty good. I’m back to my normal routine and I’m off all pain meds (actually, I was never really on them). The workers all marvel at how well I’m doing. I think this is funny. I remind them that most residents here recovering from hip surgery are in their 80s and 90s. Because I’m “only” 60 – a relative spring chicken – I should be held to a different standard!