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.

A Broken Wrist

This happened to me many years ago. You who are students out there, can still sympathize though. Enjoy the story!

 This is Karolina Kurkova riding her bike. I'm sure I didn't look that pretty!

My husband and I were both graduate students and had four young children at home. We were riding our bikes wherever we could to save money and get through school as soon as possible.

One day rode my bike down a steep street, checking ahead and seeing a green light. It looked like an easy crossing so I let the bike pick up speed on the incline, as suddenly two female students stepped into the road without checking for the go-ahead light for pedestrians, and without checking if the road I was on was clear. I slammed onto the brakes, trying to avoid the girls and managed to do so, but in the process I lost control of the bike and slid to a hard crash. Stunned, I lay on the ground. Eventual the campus police and the ambulance arrived. I assured the EMTs that I was fine, but they insisted on checking me, found I had broken part of my front tooth, and had an either sprained or broken wrist.

The police had alerted my husband, and he arrived before the EMTs could take me to the hospital. My husband assured them he’d take me to the campus doctor right away, so we wouldn’t have to pay the extra money for the ambulance. The doctor X-rayed my wrist and told me the small bone was broken, and he couldn’t do anything for me, but would refer me to a specialist.

We knew this would be costly, but we really didn’t have a choice, so we went to see the specialist. Eventually, we would also have to fix my tooth, since I was a teaching assistant, and didn’t think I should teach undergrad classes with a missing tooth. I felt better after we talked it over in the car on our way to the specialist and decided to use our meager savings.

The new doctor looked at the X-ray we had taken with us, shook his head and said, “This is a bad break. You need to have a metal pin to keep the two parts of the bone together until they knit.”

Check in tomorrow for the ending!

Here's the Link to Carnival Girl!

The link is there! Please pre-order Carnival Girl and read about Sonja Herbert's unusual life!

Hot Flashes -- A Surprise Revelation

  Mutti at 84

In August, my mother visited from Germany. Mutti, as I call her, had grown smaller, but she was healthy, happy and delighted to see me. As we talked, the subject of menopause came up. “How come you never had hot flashes?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my brow. 

She wrapped herself tighter into her jacket. “When I was about 45, I went to the doctor and got these pills,” she said. 

I was dumbfounded. Here I was, believing all these years that Mutti was living proof hot flashes could be overcome and menopause could be conquered, and now she tells me she’s been on HRT all that time? I opened my mouth. 

Before I could say anything, Mutti said, “I wasn’t going to deal with hot flashes while raising all of you. Do you think I should quit taking them now? After all, they are probably gone when you are 84.” 

“Mother Towne says they aren’t,” was all I could say. 

I was uncharacteristically quiet the rest of the day. 

That night, Ken suggested we go camping. “I’m too old for such stuff,” Mutti said. “I’d rather go to the mall and do some walking.” I said nothing. I’d go camping again any time. But from now on, I would sleep on the outside. Let Ken wonder. I don’t care. 

Maybe the hot flashes, anxiety attacks and the claustrophobia will give up one day. I won’t.

Hot Flashes 2 -- Claustrophobia!

  Camping can be scary!

The next summer, as so many times before, Ken and I went camping. Ken put up the tent, I got the blankets from the van, and we made our usual cozy nest beneath the Oregon fir trees. I snuggled into the inside corner, my jeans still on and covered myself with all the blankets I could find. Ken cozied up next to me by the entrance. For a little while we talked, laughed and then went to sleep. 

My old visitor, hot flash, woke me. I struggled to get rid of the blankets to cool off when my head hit the low tent ceiling. My heart joined the struggle and aimlessly raced up and down in my chest. 

I couldn’t breathe. This tiny crowded space held no air. I struggled to free myself from the constraining blankets. My hands struck the damp tent walls. My flailing got me tangled tighter into the blankets. My heart tried to push out of my chest to catch its own breath. I struggled over Ken, pulling the blankets behind me and groped for the exit. 

There was no exit! 

Ken tried to push me back into the terrible coffin-like space behind him. I pushed him away, fumbled for the zipper with my last shred of reasoning and burst from the tent. 

Outside, in the pitch dark, I took deep breaths, calming my crazy heart. Ken must have thought that I needed to go to the bathroom. Let him think that. I wouldn’t be the one to enlighten him. Sitting on pine needles in the dark, I told myself this unexplainable, and never before experienced, bout of claustrophobia was but another manifestation of menopause. My strong, independent self should not succumb to it. 

I was woman! I had taken life by the horns and conquered it! Menopause would not become my master! And I would not succumb to hormone replacement therapy, like other, weaker women. Eventually I crawled back into the tent and dozed on and off until daylight. The claustrophobia did not return.

Hot Flashes, Part 1

When I felt my first hot flash, I decided I wouldn’t be one of these weak women who needed chemicals to feel good about their changing selves. I gave birth to six children without epidurals, and, after my marriage fell apart, I raised them by myself for eight years. Just because I finally found the perfect guy and re-married didn’t mean I wasn’t a strong woman who was in control.

Verna, my mother-in-law in her late 70's

 

However, the unwelcome flashy guests became more and more insistent. I talked to my mother-in-law, who was then 82. “Do the hot flashes ever go away?” I asked her. 

“Don’t bank on it,” Mother Towne said. “I still get them occasionally, in spite of my age.” 

Oh yeah. That won’t ever happen to me. My mother, also in her 80s, still lives in Germany and walks five kilometers every day. She’s never had a single hot flash in her life. 

 My mother in her 70's

I said a polite “Oh my goodness,” to Mother Towne, and went my way, even more determined to wait out these pesky flashes, and become tough and enduring like my mother. 

A few years went by. One night I woke, a hot flash straddling my racing heart. All kinds of terrible images invaded my sleepy mind. I catapulted up, convinced that my youngest daughter, who was still with us at 17, wasn’t home yet and had been in some terrible accident. 

I woke my sleepy husband, who mumbled, “Whatsamatter?” 

“Meagan,” I almost yelled. “Is Meagan home?” 

“Simmer down,” Ken said. “Meagan came home before you went to bed. Remember?” 

“Oh.” Yes. Then I remembered. She came in just as I turned off the TV. 

I sank back into the blankets. The hot flash must have gotten tired of the havoc it had created and took the midnight train my racing heart had tried to catch. I lay in bed, trying to figure out what had just happened while Ken rolled over and resumed his soft snores. This sudden panic had come upon me unexpectedly and without warning, shutting down my reasoning facilities of which I was so proud. Shamefacedly, I told myself this was just a momentary lapse. With renewed determination not to let menopause win, I went back to sleep. 

During the next year, I had many more anxiety attacks, but proudly talked myself out of them every time. I could win this fight if I just stuck with it. 

About brain dumping and stuff

I will be putting Ash's and Jill's story on hold for a while, because I'm thinking about doing a complete rewrite. In the meantime, enjoy the beginning of this funny little true story about my mother and me, which I'll be posting above!