On Monday, August 6, 2012 I had a "new adventure"! We were walking up a narrow, busy street on the Mount of Olives. Kent and I were at the tail end of one class of students. We were hugging the side of the road, trying to stay out of the way of the traffic. There were cars parked on both sides of the road. I came to a parked car and followed the student in front of me up onto a painted, concrete mound in front of a small cafe. Probably put there to make deliveries easier. Unlike the student in front of me, I slipped on the slick surface and fell. I instinctively tried to catch myself with my right hand and noticed,as I hit the ground, that my wrist bent the wrong way. :)
I, of course, did not get up immediately. i was holding my arm and trying to breathe.What I didn't realize was that the "parked" car was actually trying to pull out into the road. When Kent saw me go down he thought I had been hit by the car. When he reached me my right foot was up against the back tire of this moving car. Kent grabbed my legs and pulled them away from the car and the student in front of me told the driver to stop.
There was a Dutch family taking a break at the cafe. The wife ran over to me, brought me into the cafe, got me into a chair and asked the owner for a frozen bottle of water. Then she got a scarf - also from the owner, and filled it with little ice cubes and wrapped it around my wrist. What a blessing that was! She kept checking on me until the doctor arrived. Our resident doctor and his wife [Dave and Jan Peterson] were with the other class, so Kent called him to come and look at my wrist. They both came. The doctor called the Center to have a van come and take us to the hospital.
Here I am, with the doc's wife, Jan, waiting for the van to pick us up. The reason she is holding a cloth to her nose? -- As she was trying to get to me she tripped over the step you can see in the lower right of the picture. It looks just like the floor. What a pair we make!!
Kent and I were so grateful to have the Petersons there with us the entire time. They had spent time at the emergency room before, with one of the students, so they knew the drill.
As in all hospitals, most of the time was spent waiting. Here, I've been checked in and am waiting for someone to take me to x-ray.
This man was so very gentle as he wrapped my arm up. He placed a piece of cardboard against my arm and then covered it all with soft gauze.
Getting instructions before going to x-ray:
My hand before they set it:
Here is the x-ray. I broke the radius bone and jammed it up behind the other bone:
Before the shots. The WORST shots I have ever had!! Kent couldn't stand to watch so there are no pictures, but he said the syringes were huge and they used 2 of them:
After the shots:
Setting the bone:
Plaster casting:
After they finished with the cast, I had to wait for about 10 minutes, go have another x-ray taken, then go back to the emergency area so they could adjust the cast if needed. Another hour. Happily, when they checked the x-ray everything was lined up. Doctor Peterson said that it was the best alignment he had ever seen! The last step - saw [as in cut] a long strip out of the top of the cast to allow for swelling and cover the cast with an ace bandage.
We arrived back at the Center just in time for our group photo in this semester's t-shirts. Kent just tucked mine up under my cast. I don't have a copy of that one yet, so I'll post it later.
This is a day I will NEVER forget -- and hope I NEVER repeat!!
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