Serious Vector Changes in Life

No posts since spring and now with a warning, graphic content within. The long delay was mostly because I was writing about certain activities in my life, that all came to an immediate halt on March 17th. I was riding my bike home, like nearly every day, when I was broadsided by truck. Ouch. Flying through the air, then thud I hit the sidewalk. Immediately, there was massive pressure in my leg. I took a look I could see things weren't aimed in the right directions. I was surrounded by a crowd, which fortunately included an off duty emt. The first words, out of my mouth, as I lay their clutching my leg, "is someone calling 911?". One of the people in the crowd was the guy who hit me, and was a apologizing to which I replied yelling about how he wasn't even looking. It seemed like no time before the ambulance arrived. The trip from the sidewalk to the ambulance and then the ambulance ride itself were uncomfortably rememberable. 

After onboard the ambulance, I remember being entirely to conscious of everything. I was asked by an officer where I wanted my bike taken. I said home but was adamant about them calling Tisha first, so they didn't just show up with my dented bike. Surprisingly my bike had little damage, other than a nice dent in to top tube. The physics of  injury boggle my mind a bit. The trucks bumper hit the outside of my quad, breaking my femur, which lacerated my femoral artery and still had enough force to dent my bike frame. I remember directing the officer to my phone in my pocket and Tisha's number. They told me they could hopefully alleviate some of the pain and pressure in my leg but it would come at the price of temporarily increasing the pain as they pulled my leg straight. I told them to go right ahead and probably added a please.


Apparently, the phone call to Tisha did not accurately describe my injuries, which at that time they did not know. They told her I was going to the emergency room with a broken leg. If only that had been the case. So we arrive at the hospital and I'm wheeled across what feels like the bumpiest concrete of all time to the outdoor xray/mri trailer. I hear my whole family, especially my little niece, cheering me on. I give them my best wave and thumbs up to attempt to convey that I'm doing just fine. Which at that point I think I am. I don't really recall my time in the emergency room. I'm told that after my pictures are finished at the photo lab I was sent off to my first of four surgeries. This first one they set my femur straight by hooking me up with an external fixater. Cut me open near my groin to pinch off my femoral artery, above where they had to sew my shredded artery back together. Look Ma, new artery. Then apparently, they had to perform a fasciotomy due to compartment syndrome. I had quite the team of doctors, over half a dozen, in my initial trauma surgery. 


I wake up in the recovery room, where you almost always wake up. I can't say I can really remember this any more. I have found it strange how the memory works through a traumatic incident like this. I only have piece parts of memories now. So they wheel me over to ICU at this point. I have an intubater down my throat which makes talking basically impossible, and a general state of uncomfortableness. I get to use writing as my means of communicating. I wrote a lot about how I was in pain, complained about how they were preserving paper, how uncomfortable the intubater was, and other random complaints. My loving family was with me the whole first night as they learned of my more serious injuries. I have learned that compartment syndrome can hit the kidneys pretty hard due to rhabdomyolysis and my "ck", creatine kinase, an enzyme released by damaged muscle, were incredibly high. 

Next operation a few days later is to put a half inch titanium "nail" up my entire femur. I remember this trip down to pre-op. My mom and my wife escort me down there. I became quiet familiar with the ceiling along the route to the pre-op room. My mom knows several of the people in there, this creates a sense of safety and care, which is quite nice in these tense situations. One of the people she knows gives me some nice drugs that relax you before they anesthetize you. She describes it as a warm tequila buzz without the hangover. Mom also knows and has worked with the surgical nurse, how great is that. So they give me the anesthesia, which is terrible tasting, straight up chemical taste and I'm out. Waking up in the recovery room again with a couple new cuts on my leg, no more external fixater and a shiny new 5mm titanium nail, complete with 3 screws.

More drugs, more fluids, more weird dreams. Because of the bad rhabdo, they filled me with an average of an extra 4 gallons of fluids. That's approximately 30lbs of water. Needless to say I was swollen, everywhere, including my skull. I kept telling people to check the back of my head for a scratch, which at first no one would really listen. Finally, one of the great ICU doctors took a look and agreed there was a scratch. He put in an order for bacitracin after that. Well due to those 30lbs of fluids that scratch spread from a 1/2 inch to 2-1/2 inches, which in the end took my hair with the scab. I have no idea about the line underneath. The dreams I had on morphine, dilaudid, and other opiates were quite bizarre. The most memorable one was being inside one of those 3d posters, a red one, with a buddhist theme. Lots of flesh and asphalt dreams and most of the time I was floating upside down with my nose only centimeters from the ground.

My third surgery was to attempt to do my skin graft or better yet, to close up my fasciotomies. They got the outside one sewed up but there was still too much swelling to close the inside one, so they gave me a would vacuum instead. My last surgery was the actual skin graft. So I started my physical therapy while I was still in DOU, I think. That has continued to this day.