The Usual Suspects

On Friday I woke up to find Justin in the guest bed groaning in pain with his back out.  Neither of us are sure what exactly caused the pain, but it's probably related to his recently re-starting a morning workout coupled with assembling the enormous dresser/changing table for the nursery.  The workout involves lifting weights repetitively and the changing tables involves millions of little screws and pegs, a Makita drill, instructions that look like cryptic writing from ancient Mesopotamia, beer, and apparently the ability to swear like a sailor.  It's like a mathematic formula for pain.

We called the doctor and made an appointment for Justin to come in at 11:00 am that morning.  In the meantime I went about my daily business, in quite a cheery mood because my sister was arriving the following day, because B the G had been given the all clear with the IUGR and because now Justin was the one who had to keep still and I could legally do a little more around the house without hearing it from him.

 

I shared my good news about B the G with Mimi who calls about every morning for an update and we discussed the trials of her pregnancies and mine and she begged me now that this latest crisis had passed, to just sit still and not move for the next five weeks.  Ha. Ha. Ha.  

A morning chore I've done since we got Gordon is to open the gate connecting our yard to our neighbor's which allows their dogs and Gordon to frolic together at will.  He loves it, they all get exercise and it doubles the size of their play area.  This involves a little duck under a chain link fence and then lifting a doggie door cut into the fence.  I've been very careful about holding onto the fence, stepping slowly, and minding the dogs since my belly has gotten so big in recent weeks and lately I had been asking Justin to do it, but of course he was incapacitated in the bedroom.  I was thinking these exact thoughts as I went through the motions on Friday.  Watching my feet, placing my hands carefully on the fence, opening the gate.  It went like clockwork and I was practically whistling like Tom Sawyer on my way back to the house.  

Then. Coming down the terraced steps in the backyard, the ones that have no rail because they're TERRACED, I slipped off the edge of the steps, flailed my arms wildly and went down like a bag of dirt.  Most of my weight went on my right foot which bent inwards and my butt.  I sat their stunned for a minute while the dogs circled around me wondering what this act was all about.  Then my foot began to ache, then fear for B the G set in, then I started to cry like a toddler lost in a mall.  Big, scared tears, panting, breathing, the works.  I let everything out on those steps.  All of the fear I was experiencing at that moment, plus the angst of the last three weeks, the pain in my foot, the frustration of my situation.  The dogs began to bark and howl around me, sensing the emotion and I thought maybe Justin will hear and come help me.  He didn't.

I called Gordon over and leaned on him while I hoisted myself up.  Hobbling into the house I yelled to Justin that I had fallen and then sat on the couch and cried some more.  He comes out of the bedroom walking like Frankenstein and tries to make sense of what happened through my blubbering.   He's worried about the fact that I'm crying so hard that I might start hyperventilating and tells me to try and stop.  So I did.  Once I turned off the waterworks I was able to make a plan to get to the hospital to check on the Bean and my foot at the same time Justin went to his appointment.        

I had to drive because Justin couldn't raise his arms high enough.  I felt B the G kick a few times on our way there and I felt fairly certain that she was fine which helped me stay focused.  I hobbled over to the ER and Justin went upstairs to his doctor's office and we promised to meet up later, as though for a lunch date.

The ER, which by the way is on the far end of the hospital, told me I needed to go to the Maternity Center to check on the baby and then come back for my foot, which by now is really beginning to throb.  I make it to the Maternity Center and god bless them, they kicked in and took over.  Checked me into a room, put me in a hospital gown, hooked me up to fetal monitors and I got to hear that lovely, reassuring heartbeat.  They went over me with a fine-toothed comb.  Questioning everything, drawing blood, urine sample, blood pressure, temperature, a cervical exam that felt like they were trying to reach my throat from the inside.  

Somewhere in there Justin found me after a trip to the pharmacy for muscle relaxers and sat uncomfortably in the chair next to me.  He popped some and began to sink lower and lower in the chair, informing me that he would be unable to drive home.  After about three hours and seeing nurses, interns, residents and the attending, and hearing from each one of these people how important it is to hold onto the handrail when I am on stairs (they're TERRACED!), they and I were finally satisfied that my Bean was just fine and they sent us on our way. 

I really felt like I should get my foot looked at, much as I wanted to get home, get Justin home and get something to eat.  So I went back down to the ER and Justin told me he couldn't sit in a chair anymore and was going to take a cab home.  I knew it would be a wait so I told him to go and settled in for more waiting.  

The ER at Emory is light years away from the cozy, warm maternity center and I began to feel yucky sitting there.  Everyone there looks miserable, staff, admins, patients, everyone.  When I got called back I talked to a triage nurse who told me I would have to have an x-ray to see if the foot was broken.  I don't know what I really expected here. I mean it seems like a normal procedure for my problem, but being 35 weeks pregnant, despite reassurances that I would be covered in lead and only the foot would be x-rayed, I began to have doubts about proceeding.  I really didn't think it was broken, as I could still bend it and there was no swelling.  I really just wanted somebody to reassure me of this without an x-ray, wrap it, and pat me on my head.  

Waiting for the radiology tech, I sat next to an old woman wrapped in a sheet who smelled like urine and a younger woman who looked like 10 miles of bad road, and hacked constantly into her hands.  I began to feel germs creeping onto me like army ants and when the radiology tech came out and called the next patient in, he had the same vacant, disconsolate look on his face as the old woman in the sheet.   I had enough.         

I told the administrative assistant at the front that I was leaving, I didn't want my x-ray I just wanted to go home.  She asked me to wait for the nurse which I did for about two coughs worth of time from Hackensack sitting beside me.  Then I told them again that I was leaving and she made me sign a form that stated that if I died as a result of leaving early, the hospital was not responsible.  They underlined and emphasized the word "death" and I signed happily and limped out of that place like Keyser Soze leaving the precinct on his way to freedom.   

Justin was there in the waiting room when I came out, having forgotten that he didn't have house keys and fitting right in with the wretched face theme that was de rigueur for the complete ER experience.  Sadly, my limp didn't fade like Soze's when I left the hospital.  It hurts and continues to hurt if I walk too much on it.  So I'm back to being immobile for awhile.   Only now I have company!  Groggy, grumpy JC.   But at least we have each other.