Oh My … What Next?

The past two week have been … challenging. I’m too tired to go into details, but basically, I’m back into caregiver mode.

It’s nothing terribly dramatic; on February 4th, Jer fell on the ice during a curling practice and broke his right leg. More precisely; he broke both of the bones of his lower right leg.

Being idjit men 😏, Jer and his curling friends decided they should just bring Jerry home, thinking it was a sprain or something. I can’t imagine the pain involved in carrying him out to a car, driving from Palmer to our home in Wasilla and then carrying him into the house.

Hey, in the moment, they (including Jer) thought they were doing the right thing. We elevated his leg, put ice packs on it, and he spent a painful night in the recliner since there was no way we could get him upstairs.

Early the next morning, we ended up calling 911 and sending Jer off to the emergency room – this was obviously more than a sprain, and I couldn’t physically help him.

It turned out he has a posterior tibial plateau fracture, a non-displaced fracture of the shaft of the right fibula and a fibular head fracture. Three fractures in one fall. Two are right at the top of the bones, where they connect with the knee.

They took X-rays and a CAT scan, then sent him home with his leg in a big full-leg immobilizer brace and orders for total non-weight-bearing. Even the smallest amount of weight on the leg could cause displacement of one or more of these fractures, sending him to surgery.

We ended up having to order a non-emergency medical transport to bring him home. The brace on his leg wouldn’t fit in the car and he was too weak and in pain to hop on one leg with crutches, so we couldn’t even attempt a back-seat transfer. I wouldn’t have been able to get him up the steps and into the house anyway. I sure hope insurance covers that ride home.

Then the problems really started.

I’ll update as things settle into a routine here. Although there have been some seemingly insurmountable obstacles, so far we have muddled through, taking one day at a time.