As us Dark Sky Rangers were putting away the telescopes for the night I saw an asteroid headed directly toward us and knocked Ranger Jesse out of the way striking the asteroid to smithereens with my uncuffed Wonder Woman wrists, plus in the process, breaking both wrists.
The story of breaking both wrists began Saturday night August 17th. I had put the solar cones into the utility trailer, walked down the ramp to I thought the bottom, turned right and caught the narrow guidewire just above my right ankle falling forward with arms outstretched into pavement. Saved my face, except for a chipped top denture tooth. And instead a bad sprains, ended up breaking both wrists.
After I took body inventory, the Rangers helped me stand and walked me into the building where bags of ice were made up to rest my swollen wrists on. My hands were at about a 45° angle to my arms and swelling rapidly. Fingers still wiggled, no bone protrusions, massive pain (9), and we’d just finished a nine-hour day so at midnight I declined going to the hospital. Instead I was driven home.
I was in intense pain and couldn’t unbuckle my pants to take a pee before going to bed. I didn’t want to sleep in pee soaked uniform pants. Crying, softly yelling (I have neighbors), and swearing weren’t going to work so I called a neighbor who lives a couple RVs away, at now probably 1 am. She got me stripped down, helped me in the bathroom, gave me a couple of pain pills, and tucked into bed with an icepack held between my mangled wrists. She also offered to take me to the hospital and I declined. I just wanted to sleep, which I did immediately, but then fitfully until daylight.
I called my supervisor about 8:30am and he was upset not to have been notified the night before. He came right over saying I must have been in shock when walking into my sauna temperature house. It was warm outside as he helped me into his car. Then drove me to Panguitch Garfield hospital, on a quiet Sunday morning in Utah. The ER staff quickly settled me into a bed, hooked me up with saline, morphine, and some other things. Took multiple x-rays and prepared to knock me out to straighten and splint both wrists. I nodded multiple times and finally woke to being totally unaware it was done.
The original plan was for me to stay in the spare room at my supervisor’s house in the park but when we stopped at my RV for a few things my neighbor offered to help me at home, a definite preference. Her husband is a part-time Ranger. Another wife of a volunteer, and a Ranger also pitched in. The Bryce community came forward to help make me comfortable. I just had to learn to be on their schedule.
I began training folks the following morning for my quadruple, almond, mocha, breve. Easy to eat food arrived. The toilet room door was propped open as I couldn’t twist the round door knob. The worst was not being able to wipe my own butt. Sorry if that is TMI, butt, that’s what happens after breaking both wrists. Narcotic pain pills gone, every part of my body ached, and wrists at level 6-7 on the scale to 10. Nights were extremely difficult to get comfortable in bed. I took Tylenol and Ibuprofen alternatively every four hours.
Wednesday I was driven to Dr. Allen the surgeon in Cedar City. It’s not good. The findings: “Right wrist: There is a comminuted intra-articular fracture through the distal radius. Volar tilt is lost but ulnar tilt is preserved. There is associated mild shortening with resulting ulnar positive variance. There is also a likely mildly displaced triquetral fracture seen only on the lateral projection. There is overlying soft tissue edema.” “Left wrist: There is a comminuted intra-articular distal radial fracture with preservation of ulnar inclination with loss of the normal volar tilt. There is a well corticated ulnar styloid fracture, likely remote.” Not sure I understand any of that but to me translates to, fucked up.
Surgery could have been performed the following day, but had to wait for government approval from workers comp that can take from 7-10 days. So I returned home to Sierra.
Finally got approval and scheduled surgery for 4:30pm, Thursday, August 29th. No eating all day. A volunteer drove me the 1 1/2 hours to Cedar City hospital and I got a hotel room for us because there was no guarantee I’d be kept over night for the approved same-day surgery. Didn’t get rolled into surgery until 8pm and out at 11pm when it was decided I could be kept for up to 23 hours. A relief to me, and sure hope my driver enjoyed the nice room.
By the next morning I was sort of freaking out about being sent home alone with extremely limited mobility. I couldn’t even wiggle fingers. Then the hospital social worker stepped in and called Washington DC to say, they could not safely discharge me home alone. One thing the gov pays attention to is safety. I could have kissed her. Sent my driver home, settled in to the uncomfortable hospital bed, and turned on the TV for a Disney marathon while waiting to see what would happen next.
On a side note, typing with two fingers is my current PT.