X-ray

One story that I have often told, but apparently never written up here, is of the D'elbow*.

Many years ago, about the time I was just over a year in the OR as an RN, Dylan rode his bike out to his parents', as both exercise and independence. On the way home, very close to his old house, a little kid on a bike cut him off, and he went over his handlebars, hitting everything on his elbow.

I'd finished work, waited for Dylan to get home. And I got a call.

His mom, who passed the phone to him.

"Hi. How are you?"

"Hi. How are you? No, what did you do?"

"... I broke my arm."

I gave the insurance and Instacare address info to his mother, and headed off through crosstown/rushhour traffic, nearly getting taken out by a truck at the last block.

When I got there, he was shielding his arm from a rambunctious child and his mother was reading his Psycotronic magazine. (This worried him a bit, after.) They took him back for an X-ray, and according to him, a nurse pulled out a huge cartoon orange syringe and gave him a shot of glowing Demerol. He started to pass out and said nurse and I grabbed him and got him on a gurney. They x-rayed him, and sent us to (my) hospital ER.

There is a huge gap in my memory, but we cast up there, in a cold room with a gurney, and eventually an orthopod on call telling us, "as soon as your elbow hit the pavement, it will never be the same again." He was telling the truth, a truth we took forward through the ordeal. A hand surgeon would call us, go home. At some point I let my work know what had happened, and they made sure Dylan got a good surgeon and anesthesiologist and staff, and my own hours were adjusted and in flux. He got the cast clinic to form a splint, to stabilize him enough to sleep. I don't know who his circulator was but I do know he had a good scrub.

I took him home, settled him on the futon sofa, and went out for videos. Got The Cheap Detective and... something else, filled his pain med Rx, got food, and was back in time for Dr. H's call. High Noon, and Murder on the Orient Express, he tells me. I have no choice but to believe him. He remembers this with strange gaps that worried me for a long time. But I got him reasonably comfortable with all the throw pillows he never minded afterword, and I managed to sleep because I knew the day ahead would be long.

Got him to the hospital, and a kind aide brought a wheelchair, since walking was painful. Another gap. I assume they took care of him. I know I was there in pre-op, as he enjoyed versed, an IV version of valium. The only drug he was happy on, and he doesn't remember it (causes anterograde amnesia). He got a nerve block.

I stayed in the staff lounge, occasionally checking at the charge nurse desk.

And Brenda saying "That's a bad break."



My heart sank. I learned that elbow fractures are some of the worst. His surgeon one of the best, and fast, and it was four agonizing hours later, with various staff talking with me, that the severity of the injury sank in, and he got out of surgery. I worked general, abdominal surgery at this point. Orthopedics would come later. This would not be simple or easy, and would never be normal.

I set up FEMLA, so that I could get him dressed and fed for the first... month? Few weeks? Not sure, but I had to keep working, and get him to therapy, and so I covered lunches and tried to be a good nurse to the only patient that I would give my own life for. He stayed overnight, for pain control. His friends insisted on taking me out for dinner and beer. I protested that I was fine. Fine. They ignored me, and fed me, then took me home. For this alone, I would give them my loyalty for the rest of my life. I don't know how I slept that night, badly I expect, but I slept. Worked the next day, checking in on him as I could. Helped him piss the next morning. Brought him home the next day. Stopped for a fruit slushy, since antibiotics meant he couldn't keep anything down, surviving on Lifesavers candy.

His anesthesiologist brought me into PACU to be with him after surgery, and the first thing Dylan said to me was "I love you." He also kept thanking his PACU RN. And referred to his fractured (comminuted, shattered, into the joint) as D'elbow. A joke in Shakespearean French coming out of anesthesia is extraordinary. And typical of him.

Healing was long and slow. An excursion to the Pride Festival, me shielding his arm, and meeting a friend who exclaimed "Ooooo.... you're on drugs!"

Dylan took PT seriously, and appreciated them as the nicest sadists he's ever met. He never whined, hated the drugs, and reminded me of how much I loved and respected him, a fact I'd begun to forget.

The night he came home, settled in, I needed a hug, perhaps as much as he did. I carefully edged between the splint and him and we held each other, gently and intensely, for a few minutes. It would do for a while.

We got him huge t-shirts, slit the tops of the arms, and safety pins to keep him dressed. He got enormous fracture blisters under the splint. He didn't do well with narcotics, but endured. Found springy shoe ties, that meant he could wear shoes without assistance. There were chair massages in the neighborhood, giving him some measure of comfort amidst the pain. I massaged him as well as I could, but I was worn out. I shaved my head, as One Less Thing that year. He took full responsibility for getting to PT, two busses and lots of scheduling, worked through it all, and got through. I met him there on my lunch when I could. A second surgery six months later, to clear all the adhesions, not quite as painful, he got home, picked up his guitar, played his eight bar blues, and knew he'd make it through. He did. We did.

His arm is still maimed, but he plays guitar. And I remember every time an elbow surgery comes through. He's got a fucked up elbow. He's gotten better.

My second falling in love.

Both of us have wibbly-wobbly memories of this episode, and trust not our own minds. Only that we remember each other as reliable and brave. Nothing else really matters.



The timeline is a mess here, like when Moby writes. But it's how the story exists in my memory. A strange and difficult time, decades ago now.



*KATHERINE
Et le coude?
ALICE
“D'elbow.”
KATHERINE
“D'elbow.” Je m'en fais la répétition de tous les mots que vous m'avez appris dés à présent.
ALICE
Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.
KATHERINE
Excusez-moi, Alice. Écoutez: “de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arma, de bilbow.”
ALICE “D'elbow,” madame.