I've had several people ask me about the story behind the scar on my ankle and why I have had chronic pain there. On and off for a few years, I have been working on writing the story down and editing it to create a series of blog posts that will answers those questions. I have taken a long time to write all this down because sometimes the memories of the trauma are still raw and intense. Through the sharing of my story, I pray that you will see the richness of God’s grace and mercy in suffering. May God alone get the glory for what I share with you, dear reader.
Grace and Peace to you,
-Alison
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Let me start from the beginning. It was a cool, cloudy Sunday after Thanksgiving. The date was November 30, 2008. My parents had spent the night with us the previous night because they had been traveling and stopped to spend some time with us as they passed through Birmingham on the way back to Atlanta. All four of us (Scott, E, M, and I) had started getting colds. With my parents leaving and the colds that were taking hold, we decided to stay in from church and get some rest. We decided to watch a couple of Christmas movies since the Christmas season was about to begin. We started gathering all of the essentials together to get our movies going - hot tea for Scott and me, a snack for E. I had just finished nursing M, so he was all set. The final piece of the plan was to have blankets to snuggle under. We just needed one more blanket. M was fussy, so while Scott was in the kitchen fixing himself some tea, I picked up our son and headed upstairs to retrieve a blanket from the guest room. After I got the blanket, M in one hand and the blanket in the other, we headed downstairs. We made it all the way to the bottom two stairs safely. As I took a step down from the second step, I felt my heel touch the front of the bottom step and my toes touch the floor. After that, all I remember is a whirlwind of commotion. I dropped the blanket at some point to put that hand up to keep my son from crashing into the wall in front of us. More blur of commotion. Then it all stopped. I was still standing, but something wasn’t right.
Suddenly, P-A-I-N!!!
I knew I had to put our son down. Quickly! I was thankful for the rug on the floor and the pile of clothes I had gathered to be donated. I laid our son down on the pile of clothes and started calling for Scott. The pain was intensifying. It was pain like none I had experienced before. I looked down to find two bulges, one on either side of the bottom of my leg, just above my ankle. After a few moments, however, God’s mercy though shock began to set in and as long as I didn’t move much, the pain was tolerable.
It’s a funny thing that comes over you in that moment. My mind was racing with all sorts of thoughts:
“Oh no! E witnessed all of this. Will she be traumatized?”
“We have to call Mom and Dad. They just left and they will be the closest to come watch the kids.”
“Oh no! Who will feed M? He won’t take a bottle and he just started eating cereal.”
“Wait! It’s Christmas season! I’ll be missing lots of fun!”
“Who will do all the Christmas shopping?”
Oh, if only I had known what road lay ahead...The mercy of complete ignorance of things to come can sometimes be one of the biggest blessings. But I digress....
Scott suggested that he could load me up in the car and drive me to the ER. I told him to call for an ambulance. I didn’t know if I could make it downstairs to the car. I didn’t want him to carry me, either. He called 911. He then called my parents, who had just left. My parents got back to our house just after the EMTs began putting an air cast on my ankle. More pain. As I was loaded on to the stretcher, the shaking started. I thought I was just cool from being outside heading to the ambulance. I felt okay otherwise, but that’s when the head EMT started talking. He was asking questions and telling stories. That day was his last on this job before he was to begin teaching new EMTs how to do their job. He couldn’t give me any pain medicine before we got to the hospital to have me examined. He talked and asked questions all the way to the hospital. I think it was partially to help distract from the pain and partially to keep me awake because of shock.
Once we were at the hospital, the doctor and nurses started caring for me and I was taken to a room. They started IVs and took my blood pressure, to make sure that I was well enough to safely start pain medication. A happy-go-lucky guy strolled in with a huge piece of equipment - a portable x-ray. He announced that he was the bad guy that gets to do the job of taking x-rays, and that I would hate him. He was correct about being the bad guy. I am very thankful for a husband who protects me. When the x-ray technician started to try to move my leg to take the pictures, the pain was intolerable. Scott told the tech, in no uncertain terms, to leave and find someone who could give me pain medication before anyone else tried to move that leg. There would be no x-rays done until I was more comfortable! Before I really knew what was going on, the tech and his x-ray machine were out of the room and a nurse was coming in with a syringe full of pain meds. I was suddenly in love with whomever invented that drug.
Unbeknownst to me, Scott had made some calls while he was driving to the hospital. Some sweet friends of ours, Jim and Pansy, had come to the ER to check on me. They are about our parents’ age and, at the time, they were our Small Group leaders at church. They came into the room shortly after I received the pain medication. They were talking around me to Scott. I felt it best to keep my mouth shut, lest I say something completely inappropriate. All I can tell you is that all manner of funny thoughts were racing through my mind.
The rest of the time in the ER was a blur. The “bad guy” tech eventually did come back for the x-ray. Only, this time, I can assure you, I was in NO pain. We learned that I had, indeed, broken both bones in my leg just above the ankle. A tib-fib, they called it. We were given the name of an orthopedic doctor to call to set an appointment and find out further details. The ER nurse put a temporary splint/cast/wrap thing on my leg until we could get to see the orthopedic doctor. Then we were sent home with a prescription for more pain medication. All I really remember about the ride home was wondering how I was going to get up the basement stairs to get in the house (we have 14 steps just to get to the main level of our house no matter which entrance you use). When we got home, I sat down on the bottom step and used my good leg and my arms to back my way up the stairs on my rump. With the help of Scott and my dad, I got to my bed. As I was in a pain medication haze, I really don’t remember the next couple of days until my first orthopedic appointment.
At that fist orthopedic appointment, learned a few things:
1.) DO NOT forget to take/bring pain medicine for an orthopedic appointment, especially if it is the first appointment after an injury (it wasn't quite time to be able to take more medicine before I got to the doctor's office);
2.) the breaks were, in fact, going to require surgery to place titanium in to hold the bones together for healing; and
3.) we would have to wait a week to be able to do surgery to allow the swelling to go down. During that week of waiting, I would have to be on my back with my leg above my heart.
Laying flat on your back with your leg raised sounds like fun, huh? Yeah, it didn’t sound fun to me, either. I can tell you that it wasn’t fun at all. It was boring. It was lonely. I was constantly loopy from the pain medicine. I watched more TV shows and movies than I really care to think about. I was tired of being in the same position 24 hours a day. However, being on my back all the time wasn’t even the worst part. Having to get Scott to help me on and off the toilet wasn’t the worst part. The worst part of that week was that every time I would get up to go to the bathroom (which were the only times I got up) my ankle would throb (it felt like I should be able to see it throbbing) and the broken bones would shift. The pain of the bones moving around is just as bad as the day they were broken. I’d have to pause on the edge of the bed for a minute before moving toward the bathroom. Think about it for a second. When your bones are not together to hold your foot to your body, gravity works. I shed many tears from pain that week. The only parts I remember from the week that were nice were the parts where we got visits, phone calls, emails, and postal mail cards. Both Scott and I felt loved on.
To Be Continued.....
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