Tuesdays in the ER

Apparently this is a thing now. A few weeks ago we took Ian in, and this past week, also on Tuesday, it was my turn. While the outcome of my story is ultimately “everything is fine,” the beginning is pretty ridiculous. There’s really no way to start but “I was giving Simon an underdog . . .” Yeah, ridiculous.

It was a gorgeous day outside, and we had planned to go to the park for an hour, come home do laundry, go to the park for an hour, come home eat lunch, and so on. We were nearing the end of the first hour, and the kids wanted to swing. I had put Ian and Clara in the “baby swings,” and Simon asked for an underdog. To be honest, I didn’t want to do it, but I also thought it was the “good mommy” thing to do, so long story short, I did it half-heartedly, lost my balance, and ended up plowing my shoulder into the gravel.

I rolled over, but when I tried to get up, I absolutely couldn’t, and I could tell there was something wrong with my arm/shoulder/elbow/something over there. I fumbled for my phone and asked Simon to call Joie, who I knew was home just a block away, and Jason, who was much farther away, but, you know, he’s my husband and it just helps to have him know these things. At this point, I was really thinking I would be able to just shake it off if someone could only help me up. A woman who was picking up her son from the junior high stopped and asked if I needed help. I couldn’t deny that I did. After some hemming and hawing from me, she called 911, and once again a fire truck, and this time an ambulance too, made its way to our little corner of South 8th Street.

Joie arrived a few minutes before the paramedics, and Jason got there just as they were getting equipment off the trucks. About 5 or 6 paramedics swooped in (it very much reminded me of a football huddle, everyone bending over me in a circle, blue sky behind); they cut off the sleeve of my sweatshirt, put my arm in a makeshift sling, asked about a billion questions I don’t remember, and loaded me on to a stretcher. I ended up riding in the ambulance even though it seemed like overkill because I was in a lot of pain, and we couldn’t really figure out how to wrestle all the kids and get me there quickly and safely. Jason got the boys settled with Joie and, with Clara in tow, joined me at the hospital a half hour or so later.

The next couple of hours passed quite quickly for me — a blur of pain meds, really painful X-rays, a CT scan, a diagnosis of posterior shoulder dislocation (rare as shoulder dislocations go and a huge credit to the ER doc for catching it and identifying it correctly), and eventually being put under briefly while a team of doctors and nurses (9 at one count, though I don’t know if they all were in the room when I was out) yanked my shoulder back into place. Rebecca and Joie (and Davy) were there when I woke up and brought me food and got me home, where I slept for most of the next 16 hours.

I’m not in a lot of pain, and my family and friends have been so gracious and helpful. I have a sling that makes pretty much everything awkward and inconvenient. I will start physical therapy sometime this next week. I’ll probably have to wear the sling for a month or so, and things will not be completely back to normal for four to six months. Ugh. I think the real moral of the story here is just say no to underdogs. Clearly.