Disclaimer: I wrote this 12 years ago, and I remember that day 17 years ago as well as I did when I wrote this. I remember it like it was yesterday…

Thoughts… (This is about my car accident, proceed with caution)

Five years ago today, 4/11/06, my life was changed forever.  It was a warm, sunny April day and I was on my way to work when a man in a truck failed to look for traffic before making a left-hand turn and pulled out in front of me causing a near-fatal accident.  I shattered my right kneecap and femur, broke both hips and my L2 vertebrae.  I was conscious.  I never once, in the 14 hours following the accident until I got a room in the hospital, did I lose consciousness.  When I was pulled from my car I heard the EMTs say that my right leg was, at least, 4 inches shorter than my left one and they weren’t sure if I was going to keep it.

Imagine that you’re lying on a backboard, in pain so horrible that you are, literally, blinded by it and you hear that you may not keep your leg.

At the first ER I was brought to my blood pressure dropped to 60/0 before they realized that I had internal bleeding.  I needed a blood transfusion but my veins had completely collapsed.  The nurse asked God for help in finding a vein before she stuck me the final time, that one worked.  My mother was standing at the foot of my bed in that ER watching me getting whiter and whiter, then start turning grey, my lips getting more blue. I screamed for something for the pain but they wouldn’t give me anything.  My blood pressure was so low at that point I should’ve been in a coma and if they’d given me pain meds it probably would’ve killed me.

I took my very first ambulance ride that day.  I made my mother ride with me.  She said it was the most horrible thing she’s ever done.  I screamed from Fulton to Syracuse.  I swore…A LOT, very much like a trucker and a sailor combined because I was in such agony.  The EMT riding in the back of the ambulance with me kept telling me to squeeze his hand when it hurt.  I wanted to squeeze it the entire time but everytime time I tried it hurt, I had chipped my wrist bone.

I got to Upstate and they proceeded to cut off every article of clothing I had on.  Let me tell you, if you are shy about being seen naked you will lose your shyness REALLY quickly, not that I was but that’s a different story.  One of the nurses made a comment about one of my strategically placed tattoos, which put a brief smile on my face.  After that was all done, they placed a urinary catheter and put a hospital gown on me.  While I was in the ambulance I’d gotten two units of blood so my BP was high enough to get pain meds. Oh what a happy moment it was when those drops of morphine first hit my blood stream.  Make no mistake, I was still in agonizing pain, but I really didn’t give a rat’s ass.

Now it’s time for more x-rays.  I’m wheeled down to radiology and they’re doing x-rays on everything.  I had to be propped up on this foam wedge, VERY uncomfortable in my condition.  While all 2,435 of my films are being looked at I hear one of the doctor’s say, “Wow! This girl’s not gonna be walking for, at least, 6-8 weeks.” Now, my first thought was, “Yes! I’m gonna keep my leg!” This was followed by tears, well more tears, because I was going to be completely bedridden for 2 months.  The doctor came to tell me what he saw. He walked up to the table I was lying on and before he could say anything I looked up at him and said, “I heard what you said.”  He looked away, put his hand on mine and said, “I’m sorry.” I had a CT scan done to make sure all my internal organs were in the right places and undamaged.

Upon my return to the little ER cubicle, I found that my dad had arrived.  As I’m saying a very weepy hello, he informs me, and all the nurses in the immediate area, that he’d taken everything out of my car including the 3 sets of handcuffs.  You can imagine what happened at that point.  I love my dad!!

One of my doctors came to inform me that I needed to have traction placed on my leg.  This involved drilling two holes in my shin, placing a nail in each of the holes, tying weights to the nails and hanging them over the end of the bed to stretch the muscles before surgery the next morning.  Well, you remember that I had a REALLY low blood pressure and while it had come up enough to receive morphine I could not go under anesthesia. You see where this is going, right. Yup, I had two holes drilled in my shin without anesthesia.  I had one person holding down each arm, one person holding the “good” leg and a doctor drilling into my shin bone with a black & decker.  This was in the ER, with my parents on the other side of a curtain.  When I’ve asked them about that moment all they’ve been able to tell me is that the sound coming out of my mouth was the most horrifying scream they’ve ever heard.  I never press for more as this was probably the worst day in their lives as well as mine, to date.  I was moved to a hospital room shortly after that. 

I developed a very close relationship with my morphine drip prior to surgery.  Everything was going well until I was being moved out of my bed one day.  I heard and felt many pops in my right hip.  There were two physical therapists and a student nurse moving me, no one told my RN the extent of what happened.  I went a day and a half in so much more pain that I was taking oxycontin and vicodin on alternating hours before they decided an x-ray was necessary.  The doctor that came in before the x-ray said, “I’m 99% sure there’s nothing wrong but we’re going to take an x-ray anyway.” About half an hour after my x-ray, my nurse comes in and asks me when the last time I ate and drank.  My mom and I looked at each other and she said, “You’re going to have surgery.”  Sure enough, my right hip was broken.

Six days later I go to a rehab facility. For me, it was The Manor at Seneca Hill, a nursing home that also did short-term rehab after surgery.  The downside, I was the youngest patient.  While I was there I had a one fabulous CNA and a couple wonderful LPNs.  I also was treated horribly by some others, my paion meds were not refilled a few times, they lost my heparin injections.  Needless to say, when I left there, after 4 weeks, I told my parents that they will never be put in a home when they get old.

I am cutting a lot out of this story.

A year later I’m starting to have some severe pain in my hip.  I go to my surgeons office and he decides that it’s bursitis, give my a steroid injection and sends me on my way.  When the injection wears off and I start to have significant pain again I decide that since it’s October and it’s damp it’s due to arthritis.  Over the next 6 months, the pain gets so bad that I’m using my cane to walk and I’m taking vicodin 24 hours a day. I decide to go back to the surgeon because it’s warming up and the pain is getting worse.  He does x-rays and informs my that I have stage 4 osteonecrosis.  This means that all of the bone in my hip joint has died. There is no blood flow and it could collapse at any moment.  He refers me to a colleague.

At this point I meet the most wonderful doctor anyone could ever have, Dr. Michael Clarke.  He tells me that my only option is a total hip replacement.  The earliest it can be scheduled is 6 weks from then.

The most painful thing any person can go through is bone cancer.  Osteonecrosis is second on the pain list.  I was in stage 4 of osteonecrosis.  I spent 6 weeks taking 2 vicodin every 4 hours and it did NOTHING for the pain I was in.

At the age of 30, on 7/30/08, I had my first total hip replacement.  It wasn’t just a simple hip replacement though. Remember, way back when I said that I had shattered my femur? Well, in order to fix it they had to put a rod in my femur. Before they cdould do my hip replacement they had to open my knee and remove the rod then open my hip  and do the hip replacement.  So, I had hip and knee surgery. I went home on a Monday, 5 days after surgery, I was back in the hospital that Friday. Why, you ask? I had contracted a staph infection while I was in the hospital that didn’t start to show until after I’d gotten home. Yay! More hospital time. Boo! After 5 days of IV antibiotics I get to go home, again.

Now I do physical therapy at home for a few weeks, then outpatient physical therapy for a couple months.  Before I’m done with PT I go back to work, in hindsight not a good idea.

Fast forward to July 2010. Everything’s going great. I still can’t run without looking like a wounded retarded gazelle but I have faith that, with work, I’ll look “normal” when I run.  I start doing some more difficult leg exercises, more on my exercise bike, Wii games, etc.  I start to find that I’m having some groin pain after I exercise. I think I’m doing too much so I cut down the frequency but I still have pain. Weird.  It’s time for my yearly with the fabulous Dr. Clarke. He takes x-rays and asks me if I’m having any pain. I tell him not really but rarely there’s some.  He shows me my x-ray and my fake hip has fallen apart. Fabulous! Grrr… He tells me that since I’m not really having any pain now we’ll monitor it and come back in 6 months but if things get worse come right in.

It’s December 20, 5 days before Christmas, and I’m back in Dr. Clarke’s office.  He says that we need to schedule surgery and I should have a hip asperation to make sure I don’t have an infection causing this problem and it really is a product malfunction. 

Skipping ahead again…

February 10, 2011- I’m 33 years old and having a hip revision.  I’m in the hospital for 5 days on antibiotics twice a day. I have to get a new IV line every day because the drugs keep blowing my veins.

I’m currently going to outpatient PT twice a week for an hour and a half each time. I’m workin’ my ass off to get myself to 100% before I go back to work.

I have a wonderfully supportive family, I could never have made it through everything without them.  When I start to run out of the strength God gave me I lean on them and, without fail, they’re there to catch me, everytime.