Picture it: late afternoon last Friday, the day after Christmas, St. Paul, Minnesota:
My sister Joan, an all-around cool person with just the right touch of eccentricity, was leaving work to catch the bus home.. The streets and sidewalks were wet, deceptively so. You wouldn't have realized there was ice. It just looked wet.
I was just leaving the gym, and Jerry came rushing in to find me. He had just gotten the call. Joan had just fallen and broken her ankle. An ambulance had taken her to the hospital.
So we rushed to the Emergency Room and sat with Joan while she endured xrays and doctors and nurses and being (almost) knocked out while they reset her ankle. She was in remarkably good spirits, which apparently says something good about the drugs they had her on.
Now she is confined to her apartment for a while, surgery lined up for Wednesday (New Year's Eve day -- good riddance, 2008!).... We bring her Big Macs or whatever else she requests. Our sister Mary arrives tomorrow from New Jersey for a few days to help out. And Joan's cat Alex is also looking after her (Cats sometimes when sense something is wrong?).
The doctors say she may be out of work for as long as two months. Life changes in a split second. Hang in there, Joan!
1 comment:
I will send positive thoughts for your sister's quick recovery. I am assuming they are going to do surgery to reinforce with pins, screws, and plates-oh my!
I know a woman that sits at our friendly neighborhood bar with her legs wrapped around the legs of a barstool. One evening, (so the story goes) the barstool slid out from underneath her and she landed on her right leg. Breaking her ankle in serveral places.
I believe that was last March. She missed almost 4 months of work. Because of the severity of the break she was non weight bearing and was in the wheelchair over 2months then crutches for a time and now she has to use a cane. Her ankle with all its nuts and bolts stills looks like someone shoved a ankle monitoring device under her skin.
What I am trying to say is...recovery will be a long process. A positive attitude, and the ablility to heed doctor's warnings and orders, and the support of others will be needed.
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