Broken Wrist and 12 hours in Emergency

No, not my wrist but Mrs Skoot had a mishap on Saturday night.

It was Saturday night, we left home and headed out to Langley, BC which is a city about 1 hour east of Vancouver.  It took us nearly and hour and a half to go about 50 kms because of the heavy rain and horrendous traffic and also the closure of Hwy10.  

It was our annual Christmas dinner and awards banquent for our Club.   We arrived a bit late but soon our Buffet ham and turkey dinner was served, one table at a time.

I had a couple of helpings and then a few plates of dessert.  Soon the tables were cleared and the DJ was getting the turntables ready and the dancing started.   We were dancing the night away with our friends and Mrs Skoot lost her balance and fell.   Someone caught her head so it didn't hit the wall, but when she put her hand down to break her fall, it must have been on the wrong angle . . .

We were on the East side of Langley and the closest Hospital was the Langley Memorial on Fraser Highway near 222nd Street.  We waited and waited and eventually we got a bed and a nice nurse.  They took X-rays and sure enough her right wrist was broken.   The decided to do the procedure right away and put her under sedation.   They had to assemble their crew of 4 and a new magnetic scanner C arm machine (whatever they called it)  

I'm squeemish so I stayed out of their way across the hallway.  I imagine this procedure is painful so they put the patients "out".   This machine is like a sort of x-ray machine and you can see your bones on the laptop monitor.   The Doctor can move the bones back into position by looking at the screen and when finished they put your cast on, to keep the bones in place.

The patient (Ms Skoot) is put on intravenous to "put you out" and when finished they allow and hour or two  to "wake up".   Then when you are awake, they take another X-ray to make sure all is well.   So we left our party early, arrived at the hospital just after 9pm and we were released around 2:30 am in the morning, plus another hour drive back to Vancouver, so it was a very late night.  I didn't get to close my eyes until after 4 am.

The next morning (this morning, Sunday) came early.  I got up around 8am but didn't get up until 11.   The first order of the day was to get our pain killer prescription filled and have a quick bite to eat.   Mrs Skoot was on pain killers but her hand didn't look good.  It was badly swollen and black and blue looking.   After lunch we decided to go to Emergency again.   This time we chose UBC: University of BC, Urgent Care Facility.   We arrived around 2pm and were told there was a 2 hour waiting line. 

After waiting for around 4 hours we finally got to see Dr Merkel, who was also the one who saw our Grand daughter last Friday afternoon when she got her cast for a fractured arm whilst playing soccer

It seems that Mrs Skoot's wrist had swollen inside the cast which didn't expand causing a blood constriction.  They had to remove the cast, do another X-ray and then put on a shorter splint type cast in case of swelling

It's amazing how hard it is to remove the cast.   He needed a hand saw and these special scissors, and that spreader tool

Eventually he got it off

We had to sit around for another hour or so to let the swelling go down.  And also to have them take another  X-ray to make sure all was in alignment.   Eventually we were allowed to go home

We arrived just after 2pm and got home just after 8pm, so over two days we had been in two different Hospitals for a total of around 12 hours.

Without the use of her right hand guess who has to: cook the meals, wash the dishes, tie her shoe laces ?   The thought of doing all this just overwhelms me . . .

Granddaughter like Grandmother . . .  must run in the family