Broken
Current mood: confessional
April 30, 2004
Dear Friends and Family,
This e-mail is difficult to write. I guess I didn’t want to do this until I could provide the people I loved with a “happy ending” but, due to the ongoing nature of the situation, no ending (happy or otherwise) is in sight and I simply don’t want to wait any longer. Also, an e-mail seems so impersonal a medium to use in sharing such personal information, but the idea of writing a letter by hand to each one of you is just too daunting of a task, so here goes…
On the morning of Saturday, November 8th, 2003, I woke up and discovered that I couldn't walk. My left hip hurt… a lot. At first I thought I had just slept on it wrong, you know how that is. However, when the pain wouldn’t go away and kept getting worse, I went in to Kaiser Emergency. They took X-rays and told me I had no broken bones. The doctor thought I might have rheumatoid arthritis and advised me to see my primary care physician. He gave me some ibuprofen and some crutches. A week later, a second doctor saw me. He told me to do some stretching exercises. It was probably a muscle pull. He gave me Vicodin. I began to see an acupuncturist, desperate for relief of the growing pain. That helped a little. Then, I saw a third doctor. She said that the X-rays I had gotten nearly a month before showed that I had fractured both my left and right hips! She advised getting an MRI and set up an appointment for me to see a rheumatologist (for arthritis!). It was a couple of days after that when my left hip finally broke. It happened in front of my ESL students, at work. I feel so bad for them! They were great about it, running up to me and asking, “We call nurse, teacher?” I caught my breath, told them I was fine, and chose to finish out the school day. Four hours later, when the bell finally rang, my colleagues had to help me to the faculty parking lot, and I drove myself home. Thankfully my mom was there and she bravely made the phone calls to Kaiser while I screamed in agony in the other room every time I moved. The doctor prescribed morphine and I spent the night fairly quietly at home. The next day, I kept my appointment with the rheumatologist. She examined me, nicely said she didn’t know why the doctor had sent me to her, since I didn’t have rheumatoid arthritis (halleluiah!), and directed me to go immediately to the hospital and see the orthopedist.
Those of you who have had surgery can probably relate to this-- my operation was scheduled for December 18th at 11:00 a.m. but I didn’t actually get the operation until 7:30 p.m. That day is on record as the worst one of my life. As of midnight, I wasn’t to eat or drink anything. However, since the time of the surgery kept getting pushed back, the nurses weren’t allowed to give me anything for the pain because I could be called in at any time. What’s more, whenever I started to doze off, my legs would spasm (kind of like a dog does in his sleep). Since the left one was broken and the right one fractured, you can only imagine how *that* felt. The only way for me not to fall asleep was to keep talking. I would randomly read out loud the signs that hung in the room (“Check out time is…Please refrain from…Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to the…”) or recite the Pledge of Allegiance and the Preamble to the Constitution!
I spent six days in the hospital. After that, it was advised that I either go to a skilled nursing facility (SNF), where I could get physical therapy, or I could go home. Chuy was ill with the debilitating flu that was making the rounds and my mom has health problems of her own. Incredibly, my maternal grandmother broke her hip on a flight of stairs and was facing her own surgery and recovery at the same time as me. My mom was torn between caring for her daughter and mother, and was buckling under the strain. I felt like I really had no choice but to go to the SNF.
On Monday night, December 22nd, I was admitted to a convalescent home. It was awful. They initially didn’t want to admit me because they said that “young people” found it too “distressing” to stay there. I remember scoffing at that, thinking that I wasn’t all *that* young; I could handle it. I was crying before even 24 hours had passed. My first night, I was asked if I wanted to wear a diaper, an offer I vehemently declined. My roommate was a very nice 92 year-old woman who talked incessantly and suddenly decided to write letters at two in the morning. Yet, it was the Christmas party that sent me over the edge. Imagine a roomful of nearly catatonic 90 year-olds, wheelchairs lined up in rows to receive presents from Santa. The gifts remain unopened in their laps as they stare ahead into space. “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” comes on. I lose it.
While at the nursing home, life revolved around medication, meals, and physical therapy. I approached the PT with enthusiasm. My immediate goal was to be strong enough to get from my bedroom at home to my bathroom, so we worked on getting my legs strong enough to do that. Before long, I was walking the length of the hallway and then the length of the hospital wing. In an effort to strengthen my muscles, my physical therapist wrapped a five-pound weight around my ankle and had me do leg lifts. I felt a sharp pain, but didn’t think anything about it. Just a muscle pull, I told myself.
I was released on New Year’s Eve. No partying for me! I needed to use the next six weeks to recover and get back to work. Whoops! Remember that “muscle pull” during physical therapy at the nursing home? Yep, you guessed it! I had re-fractured my right hip. My friends, I had to go through the ENTIRE ORDEAL AGAIN! It was a déjà vu of “it’s nothing, the X-rays don’t show anything” to “Well, we do see something” to “Go get a bone scan” to “Wow, so it *is* fractured” to “you’re going to need to take off work for another eight weeks to recover”. *sigh* Oh, and don’t think I didn’t cry hysterically, ‘cuz I did.
You’re not going to believe this, but between surgeries, I returned to work. I wasn’t going to do that but my boss decided that the substitute wasn’t working out and was going to let her go. I couldn’t bear for the sub to be fired since she was so nice and was just starting her teaching career. She had worked hard, under difficult circumstances, and didn’t deserve to be devastated. So, I told her that I had decided to come back after all. My boss was thrilled to be spared having the “You’re fired” conversation. I’d like to think that my students were happy with my return. Yet, now that I have had to leave them again, I’m worried that they will no longer trust me and feel that I’ve abandoned them.
I'm still home now, and plan to return to work Wednesday, May 5th. Happy cinco de mayo to me! I start physical therapy on May 21st. My right hip still does not feel like it is okay, but I’m going to ignore it for now. I can’t face another surgery. Maybe it’s just a “muscle pull”! ;-)
So, you might be asking, what *caused* all this? How could someone just wake up with fractured hips? Good question! The diagnosis of what was wrong with me varied with every new test they ran. Once the rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis was discarded, the endocrinologist went into overdrive. Based on my infertility problems, my lactose intolerance, my super low calcium and Vitamin D levels, etc., he was convinced that I was allergic to wheat! Um…wrong! Thank goodness. I would hate to contemplate a life without pizza, sandwiches, or birthday cake! For a while, it looked like I might have Paget’s disease, a disfiguring bone disorder. Um…wrong! Woo-hoo! Makeup couldn’t begin to cover the facial deformities that disease can cause. So far, it looks like I have osteoporosis. I've lost 28% of my bone mass. Whoa, osteoporosis?! I may be hanging on to it with both hands and all ten fingernails, but I still am “only” in my thirties! However, the endocrinologist thinks it's probably due to an undiscovered Vitamin D deficiency, decades of being lactose intolerant, plus a bit of hypothyroidism. I’m taking calcium supplements and a multivitamin daily. I've started taking a bone-building drug called Fosomax. We'll see in about a year if it has had any effect in reversing the bone loss.
Speaking of loss, everyone is being really understanding about what I’m going through but it's been a life-changing challenge with far-reaching repercussions. The worst part of all this isn't losing time from work or being a burden on my family. The worst part isn’t that I could break another body part at any time (and may have already done so again). The worst part is that, due to the nature of my illness and the location of my surgery, it will not be possible for me to carry a pregnancy. So, that dream is dead now. In my more philosophical moments, I chuckle a little bit and think, “Sheesh, I wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t stop trying to get pregnant even though obstacle after obstacle was put in our way. It finally took breaking both my hips and having them encased in metal that stopped me. I get it, I get it. I finally take the hint.” At other times, I am quite bitter and sickened when I read of parents killing their kids. How were they were allowed to have a baby and yet I can’t? The injustice overwhelms me and it’s hard to pull back and be positive. Chuy and I are considering adoption, but my first priority is to get myself well. Then, in October, we will be moving to a nicer apartment (still can’t afford a house that I’d actually be willing to live in). After that, I think we'll look better to the adoption agencies. Then again, maybe I’ll just go do all that traveling around the world that I’ve been postponing. Maybe I should quit making any plans, since it doesn’t seem to work out how I think it will!
Life sure can be full of surprises, can't it?
Peace,
Angel
P.S. Drink your milk! :-)
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