Catching a "break"

Today is Thursday... at least I think it's Thursday. Yes, yes, the board in front of me says Thursday, May 14, 2015! I'm sitting here in a room with the lights turned off, the small TV anchored on the wall tuned in to CNN covering the Amtrak derailment, and my dad sleeping soundly in a hospital bed with his right leg in full traction. So surreal.

Tuesday afternoon I received a call from the Stormont-Vail ER telling me that dad had a bicycle accident and while he was doing really well, he did in fact have a hip fracture. I immediately called Chris who immediately came home and I headed to the ER to get more info! I walked into his room as Dr. McCoy was talking about the fracture, and how "impressive" it was, but that the fracture dad has no orthopedic surgeons in Topeka perform the repair, thus, dad was being transferred!

Joan and I followed AMR to KU Med

So, KU Med, here we come! It seemed to take forever, but in reality it wasn't that long at all. Before I knew it, AMR was there and off we went to room 4303. Arrival time: 8:3ish p.m. A lot happened in a relatively short amount of time, including meeting the orthopedic resident who gave a tentative game plan. That's when we learned that dad fractured his Acetabulum (pelvic cup) and has a pretty significant gap where it split. Intense may not begin to describe what is going on. SO the traction... they put him there to help pull the ball join of his hip away from the fracture to relieve some pressure and to preserve muscle and joint. Guess this is much better for healing in the long run.

Traction; 20# weights off the end

Wednesday was traction insertion and that gets us to today... Thursday... surgery day! The clock on the wall says it's 12:53 and his sign on the wall says "surgery @ noon"! I thought that meant they would begin transferring him to his pre-op stuff then, but alas, we are still here. That's fine. Dad is sleeping off and on and has finally requested some pain meds, but I am antsy to get the show started. To get him some relief, to get him on the road to recovery and walking again.

Well, at least he's in good spirits and not completely miserable. Maybe he's putting on a front, maybe not, but either way, the boys miss Papa and Papa misses the boys. Better yet, I miss the boys too!

Until next time!
E

PS: I feel like I'm an expert in hips and recovery... in case I didn't mention it, mom had a total hip replaced in September 2014! Bring it on broken hips and joints!