The story so far

So my fall happened on Saturday 11 October, when my kid was visiting for Thanksgiving and reading week (great to have them here to help out, although it must have sucked for them, and I was probably pushing myself to appear “fine” when I was not). 

Saturday night is never a good time to go to ER, and I did not have a good time. More on that later maybe.

They stitched up my forehead, said nothing was broken asked me to come back Sunday morning at 6:50 for fracture clinic, and if I wanted anything for the pain I would have to wait until then. At fracture clinic, the orthopaedic surgeon told me I did have a fracture, it was just hard to see because the x-ray was not clear, so the night doc missed it. My elbow x-rays had to be re-done because they were not clear at all. Fracture clinic doc said no weightbearing, keep it in the sling (even while sleeping), lost of rest etc., and come back in three weeks (actually the doc said two weeks; the straight-talking admin said it would be three as they’re overbooked and also even with an appointment, I should expect to spend 1-3 hours waiting). I asked if I could see my physio (I already had an appointment that Thursday for my shoulder, more on that later) and he said okay, but not to move my shoulder, only to work on elbow and wrist mobility.

On Thursday, while my kid was visiting their dad, I saw my physio and pretty much broke down crying in his office because I felt so shaky and awful, and it might have been the first time I felt I could cry—the first time I felt someone really saw and understood my pain. I was all vague about how bad my injuries were (because I was in a general cloud of vagueness at that point) and showed him the notes the ER doc sent me home with, but he saw immediately that I had a broken shoulder, I had a concussion, I needed lots of rest and minimal activity. He made sure I was going to see my doctor asap before he let me leave the office.

Then I went to a random clinic to get my stitches out (ER should have provided me with a stitch removal kit, but chose to withhold that, so I had to call around to find a walk-in clinic that had one) followed by a trip to my family doc to get a check-up and a referral to a neuro clinic (I should have given him the one my friend recommended right then! But that’s the thing about concussion, you forget stuff!) and bought myself a doughnut on the way home. I was a wreck. I bumped into someone I knew, almost didn’t recognize them, and then started crying while they backed awkwardly away (part of me wonders—how did he not see that I needed help? I can’t imagine seeing someone in the shape I was in, and not making sure they got home safely).

Oof, that was all hard to write. What an awful first few days. And I left out the hardest parts. Maybe I’ll fill that in later.