A Broken Wrist, Part 2

 

It was the small bone on the outside that was broken. That one is really hard to heal.

“What will that procedure be like?” I asked, all the while wondering how much it would cost.

“I need to admit you to the hospital. You’ll probably be there for two days to have the operation and recover.”

My face fell, and I was close to tears. “We have four little children and we only have campus insurance. I don’t know how we can afford this. Isn’t there another way to fix this?”

He looked at the X-rays again, then at my unmarked hand. “I could try something, but the chances are low that it will work. I’ll push the bones together very carefully, and but a cast on it. You come back in two days and if it’s still in place, you’ll probably be healing all right. If it has moved you need to have that operation right away. You wait here. I’ll be back in a while with the things I’ll need.”

He left and Ken and I stared at each other. I saw the worry and pain in his face, and I’m sure he saw the same in mine.

“Could you give me a blessing?” I asked. “I want to put this into God’s hands.”

My husband, a former bishop in the LDS church, nodded. “I think I can do that.”

He put his hands on my head and was quiet for a while, then he spoke, assuring me that God loved me and that he was mindful of me.

I felt better already.

Ken went on, telling me that God knew my heart and that my wrist would heal fine without further need of help from the doctors or hospital.

I cried when he was finished, and he looked at me with a peaceful expression in his eyes. “I don’t remember,” he said. “What did I say during the blessing?”

I told him, and he smiled. “I often don’t know what I say when I give a blessing. That’s when I feel that God speaks through me.”

At that moment the doctor returned and very slowly and carefully set my wrist.

I went back two days later and had another X-ray. The bone was already healing, and it was still exactly in place. The doctor smiled, shook my good hand and send me home to come back six weeks later to take off the cast.

Six weeks later the cast came off and my hand was weak, but functional.

The tooth, however we had to pay for, but blessedly, we had that much money.