Dad got through his surgery okay, and should (hopefully) be coming home by the end of the week (maybe today).
Let me back up.
Last Wednesday, while eating dinner at I Trulli in New York, my cell phone did something it never does, especially when I’m sitting next to Liz–it rang. Mom was calling to let me know that Dad had slipped on an embankment while taking pictures of a train, and the resulting spill had broken his ankle in at least three places. They got him splinted, stabilized (and loaded up on happy meds) and planned to take him back to the other side of the mountains since he preferred to have the obviously necessary surgery performed by Durango colleagues that he knew well.
Tuesday’s surgery took an extra hour (clocking in at close to three hours) because they found more breaks than the X-rays indicated. Something about the fibia being in five pieces when they expected three, and that’s not even the whole of it. Mom says he’s got a plate and about twelve pins in him now to try to get everything reassembled correctly. For various reasons, they had him on a spinal anesthetic rather than general, so he got to watch the whole thing on a monitor. Ordinary folks would probably go mad from the trauma, but, doctor and stoic that he is, he described it as alternating between “interesting” and “tedious.”
He’s doing relatively well, all things considered, and seems to have gotten the message that he needs to take this seriously and obey orders. We’re not sure how long he’s going to be away from work, but the prognosis so far is at least six weeks of no weight-bearing activity whatsoever, and a minimum of six weeks of physical therapy after that. Thankfully, ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
northawke’s parents have been very kind in helping get the house set up for him and have been a huge help to my mom as well. We’re not sure what this will do to their plans to visit this fall–and even if they do come out, they should have plenty of fun with the TSA as he’ll be setting off the metal detector for some months to come.
“At least,” I told him after the surgery, “you should be thankful you aren’t a horse.” He laughed and agreed.
- Mood:concerned
- Music:Great Northern - “Home”
3 responses so far ↓
Meep. Best of luck to him in recovery!
YIKES! And, um, thanks for backing up. I read the beginning and thought to myself “Wait, how did I miss this news?!?”
I’m glad he came through OK and seems to have good local support.
You liked that, eh? I was trying to see if my old creative writing hat still fit.
I’m really glad he’s through the surgery too–I didn’t realize how much I was stressing about it until we got the call that he was in recovery.