A Broken Arm Odyssey

In a wine store parking lot, a freak tumble ended a 38-year streak of unbroken bones. Don’t ask me how I fell – in a split-seconded I toppled and landed in pile on the stairs outside the store. If the story was good, I would repeat it. But it isn't.

The human body is an amazing machine – before I collected myself or tried to stand, something felt extremely wrong. Looking at the trembling arm, I just knew. My left arm flopped uncontrollably, the nerve stunned and the bone obviously broken. A nervous sweat coursed out of me. My coworkers tried to shake it off, insisting it could be just a dislocated shoulder. My body knew better. My eyes saw the ugly angle of the arm, the bone’s jagged end poking through the skin (fortunately, not breaking the skin).

I heard distant sirens and knew I was their quarry. The ambulance rumbled over the grassy median. My shirt sleeve was cut open so they could survey the wound. They hustled through rush hour, then wheeled me into a hospital I didn’t know. By the time the nurses circled me, I requested pain medication. The doctors and nurses surveying the X-ray told me the break was bad.

I didn’t need it in the ambulance but the shock and numbness began to wear off. The worst pain came when the physician’s assistant and a nurse set the arm, placed it in a splint and mummified it in dense bandages. Only then did the pain produce tears.

Prescribed an opiate, I felt drowsy immediately. But the painkillers produced a quick but shallow sleep, populated by inadequate dreams and frequent waking. After just a dose or two, I knew I would take those pills once the unbearable pain passed.

As soon as I woke, I clamored to call the referred orthopedist. They had appointments that morning, then none until three days after Christmas. So we had to scramble.

 The young orthopedist outlined everything in unvarnished terms. When the humerus broke, a free-floating piece also cracked off. A platoon of screws and a metal plate were required to reset the bone. Surgery could result in loss of feeling in my hand and I might restore 90 percent of my left arm’s range of motion. In hindsight, he was giving all possibilities for what could happen, not giving me doomsday scenarios. This was invasive surgery.

I went three days in the same shirt I wore in the accident. It was too painful to remove and finally I gritted through Nancy teasing it off. The arm felt like it had been immersed in concrete unless I felt the pieces of bone pop. We had to wash my hair in the sink In the tub, we washed what we could.

 By Christmas Eve, the weight of the arm overwhelmed me. The sling, the pillow, the constant popping from the break point … when I sat down to write gift tags for the Christmas presents Nancy had to wrap, my pathetic sub-kindergarten script hit me the wrong way. Christmas passed slowly. The first two hours of the Georgia trip passed quickly but after a pain pill, I could not recover comfort.

The unexpected Christmas heat didn't help. The outside temperatures soared into the high 70s, and my parents kept pace with the heater. When I asked if they could cool it down, they opened the porch door, letting in the humid Georgia air. In shorts and a T-shirt every ounce of filth rolled out. When possible I retreated to basement rooms and turned on the fan.

I struggled to open gifts, could only sleep in one position for three or four hours. I was restless yet not fit for public consumption. Everyone went to a wine tasting, but my heart wasn’t in drinking. Aside from a small glass of Sierra Nevada Celebration, an annual tradition, I completely avoided alcohol. I wanted to wake up from surgery and wiggle my fingers before I celebrated anything else.

Two days of fielding calls from the workers compensation firm and pre-op instructions from the hospital left me drained. I had no foresight at the hurdles that would arise. Days of fending with the bureaucracy finally ended with surgery morning. Hours of preliminaries ticked by. Finally I disrobed and crawled into a stifling hospital gown that turned loose more sweat. I surrendered everything I owned, even my glasses. All the people who helped me from the orderly who ferried me upstairs to the ones in the recovery room are anonymous to me, voices that already faded from my mind.

I only recognized one. The orthopedist stopped in, briefing me on what came next. For a guy who didn’t have to care, he asked questions about Christmas and how the arm dealt with travel to Georgia. After some small talk, he exited to prepare. I’d rather he spent his time doing that than chatting with me anyway. I could not shake my nerves at this stage. I knew this was complicated but common surgery yet the awful passages of amputation from Johnny Got His Gun stayed with me.

A nurse struggled to find a vein for the IV – the ambulance EMTs took the best ones on the 22nd, and the left arm was a non-starter. A physician came over, found a vein, then they wheeled me into the surgical suite. After a days of sweating, the cool air of the surgical suite brought immediate relief. They put on leggings. As the breathing mask slid on, my memory stops.

Post-surgery, smiling somehow

Sensation resumes slowly, first with my scalp screaming from the worst itching I have ever felt. Nurses scolded me to keep my hands down. The anesthesia wore off incrementally. The recovered room emerged around me, the itching began to subside the more I ignored my head. I had other soreness to fathom – some drove a rototiller down my throat. A nurse asked if I needed anything. “Water,” I croaked, figuring I had nothing to lose in asking. They did not refuse me, ending a foodless run of more than 20 hours.

Anesthesia gave no respite, revealed no flaws in its facade. It operated as an immense wall blocking all intrusions, not unlike those denying evil hordes in a fantasy novel. I fear it was nothing but a four-hour coma, and thought might find a real coma similarly impenetrable.

 The surgery was a total success. The free-floating bone fragment was reattached, I could move my hand and the pain was bearable to wear I did not need a nerve blocker.

For comparison, Skip Spence

I left the surgical floor and returned to an observation room where Nancy came to see me. Vision restored, I had to pass a pain test and supply a specimen before they cleared me to leave. After my first ride in a wheelchair through the emptied waiting room and medical office, Nancy drove us home and I felt better than I should for an outpatient day. We took a picture for Facebook in which my wild hair somewhat resembled the cover of Skip Spence’s Oar.

Surgery supplies aches, pains and bruises in the coming days. By the last day of doctor-enforced vacation, I was pacing and eager for work. When they cut off the wrap that held the repaired arm in place, it was all a seamless bruise from surgical trauma. A scab ran from the elbow to midway on the upper arm.

 But I could use the arm again. The orthopedist encourage all the usage I could handle that didn’t involve lifting. Nancy and I celebrated my arm’s newfound freedom with breakfast at the Elliston Soda Shop – chicken fried steak, hardly my normal choice, seemed appropriate after 17 days without any arm usage. When I got home, I went immediately for a drive because I could. Deep into rehab, you would never know I had a broken arm. Unless I tell anyone at work, no one knows. I know with every bump into a wall, appliance or other person.

The bone will heal. Only bone heals without a scar. With no desire to open my arm again, the plate and screws will remain – no need to repeat the invasive operation just to avoid setting off metal detectors. Soon, only the TSA and I will know what happened in the wine store parking lot three days before Christmas.