Matt followed the ambulance and was the first face I saw when we got to JC and then the next face I saw was Murray's in the waiting room. (She had been headed to a wedding near Syracuse and was therefore close by when she got the text about my accident.) I cannot begin to say how incredibly grateful I was to have them both there. I don't know how I would have gotten through that night without them. It wasn't just having a familiar face but having my favorite faces. They were my anchors. I felt comfortable enough that I was laughing and crying in the same breath and was ok. We had to wait in the room in the ER for a while but I got lucky and was in the room farthest back so it almost felt like we were already admitted.
Matt was kind enough to wash the blood off my right hand to help me feel somewhat normal. His love for me through this whole thing was overwhelming. I couldn't have asked for me. The nurse at Delaware Valley had washed my wallet as best she could, they had taken off my clothes (cutting through my BBC shirt which made me sad), and Peter had washed my phone as best he could.
Murray held it together by taking pictures. :) I was a tad bit doped up so I don't remember much of what we talked about or did. I heard that when I would get taken for x-rays is when Murray would start to cry.
Dr. Kerr's resident or assistant or whoever came in to examine my hand and ask all the questions that I had been asked thirty times already. They told me he would be doing my surgery to fix my hand but it was an "ortho night" meaning all the ER cases that had come in seemed to require his attention. So I was told surgery probably wouldn't be until 12 or 1 in the morning (I had lost track of the time by now so I have no idea what time it was.).
I was taken for more x-rays. I gotta say I really enjoyed the x-ray techs. Most of them would share some story of how they had broken a finger or two before as they were setting me up to take the x-ray and then as soon as they saw the x-ray they were shouting for others to come see and "Oh my gosh!! Do you see how many bones are broken?" "Holy crap! You did good!" Fortunately, I was on enough morphine by this time that I was ok with the comments I kept receiving.
They admitted me and put me in a room upstairs and came in to check on me and give me their best estimate of surgery time from time to time. Eventually they came in saying surgery might not be till two or three am and checked my hand. They then came in maybe 5 or 10 minutes later saying we were doing surgery NOW! Apparently the color of my ring finger indicated it was not getting the circulation it needed and I was in danger of losing it, if they did not do surgery soon. They took me downstairs and the anesthesiologist gave his schpeel. (He looked like Matt Coiner by the way.)
The surgeon was there also to explain that his specialty is not hands and due to the extensiveness of my injury he wasn't going to attempt to set anything but more just put them all back in the right place/right direction. I am still amazed with his humility in this. You always hear that surgeons consider themselves to be God etc but here he was telling me he doesn't know everything and doesn't want to mess anything up. Then I remember being wheeled to the OR but the next thing I remember is being semi-awake being wheeled back to my room and seeing Matt and Murray. Murray left shortly after I came out of surgery but I was alert enough to know she left.
Matt spent the night in a recliner next to my bed. Once again, he was the most amazing boyfriend ever during this whole thing. He handled calling my parents and telling my friends etc. He slept in a chair in a room that evidently had the heat on? (Again, God's grace that my roommate allowed him to spend the night. She didn't have to let him.) After surgery they came in roughly every 30-45 minutes to make circulation was good in my hand. Of course they did this by squeezing my fingers which, no matter how much pain medication I was on, hurt like nuts. They had drilled little holes into each of my fingers to allow for the swelling to subside a bit but they were squeezing these fingers which again hurt like crazy. I was doped up enough to fall back asleep within moments each time until about 7:30. Matt was not so lucky. The heat combined with sleeping in a chair combined with the lights being turned on every 30 minutes didn't make for a restful night. And of course in the middle of the night apparently I told him to stop taking off my clothes. Ha I don't know what that means aside from proving that I was doped up.
June 13, 2010
Around 12:30 my parents arrived. Mom did pretty good holding it together. Eventually later that day I skyped with Bec and Janet and Dre and a few others. I don't remember much of this day or the next. We spent a lot of time trying to decide if we should wait to go home and do the surgery with a hand surgeon at that hospital or try to find one in Maryland. Dad and Matt spent Sunday night in a hotel and Mom stayed with me. I was really glad Matt was able to get real rest. Mom of course didn't get tons of sleep but better than Matt the night before.
June 14, 2010
Matt and Dad went to see my car and take pictures. Definitely wasn't easy for either of them. (For the record I didn't look at the pictures of my car until Nov 14).
Everyone who saw my car has said that it is a good thing I'm not tall so that my roof was caved in and not my skull. We finally decided on heading to Maryland for surgery because the surgeon in NY wanted to wait for the swelling to go down so we were going to have to wait either way.
Armed with pillows galore, I was discharged. We began one of the longest car trips of my life. My arm throbbed with every bump in the road and I cried in fear a good portion of the trip simply because it was the first time I had been in a car since Saturday. Matt squeezed my hand, talked to me, read to me etc. When we were maybe halfway home, we stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break and in stopping noticed that the car was smoking. Well, we were about to call AAA when a state trooper pulled up and Dad told him our situation and instead of it taking hours for AAA to get there, he was able to get them there in about 15 minutes. When they showed up Dad again explained the situation and even though they don't normally fix things the guy fixed it for a little extra money.
Meanwhile we checked in with Murray and she was actually on her way home to Maryland to drop off her car and only ten miles ahead of us on the highway. She backtracked a little in order in case the car wasn't going to be able to be fixed right away and she could take me home. Fortunately we didn't need her car but she was nice enough to caravan with us the rest of the way home just in case. We met up with Matt's parents in Frederick and I have never wished he was my husband more only for the fact that I didn't want him to leave. His parents picked him up (he had sent his car home with Peter and Becky so he could be with me in the car) and brought me beautiful pink carnations. And 40 minutes later we were home.
