The Daily Tannenbaum

When I was little, I had this desire to break something and have a cast, because it seemed like it would be so cool to get all the attention of walking around on crutches, or having a sling. Now that I’m older and wiser, I realize breaking something means you’re going to be in a lot of pain, and if you want attention, write a blog or something. Since you asked, this is what the cast looked like when I was in the hospital:

Tuesday night, I started to get a lot of pain in my leg. During breakfast on Wednesday, it wasn’t feeling much better, so I decided to call my doctor’s office. This is the harrowing story of what went down:

10:00 I call the doctor’s office.  After pressing “0″ repeatedly to I could talk to a person, I get a nurse on the line and tell her my symptoms: pain in my ankle, tingling in my toes, a feeling that I know exactly where that pin is, and oh yes, a constant Charley horse in my right calf. She’s totally unimpressed with me until I tell her about the calf. She thinks it might be a blood clot and wants me to come in right away. I tell her I need at least an hour and a half to get to Poughkeepsie, so once we establish my dad can drive me and that we all think it’s a bad idea for me to go to an Urgent Care place around here, we make a 1:00 appointment.

10:15 My dad leaves to do a few errands. He says he’ll be back in an hour so we can leave at 11:00. I remind him about how time works, which means he only has 45 minutes for that hour.

11:15 Dad gets back from his errands, and I remember that this is the way it has always been with my dad and time (the story goes that when my mother went into labor with me, the first thing he did was take a shower) and there is no way it will ever change. Birmingham is the same way, and any thoughts I have of changing him of lateness need to be discarded immediately.

11:17 We leave for Poughkeepsie. Dad is surprised that I’m completely ready to go. On the way up 87, I catch a glimpse of some of the big sculptures at Storm King Art Center, and mentally check that off my 30 activities list.

12:45 We arrive at the hospital. My orthopedic surgeon is based out of a different hospital where I had my surgery. The one we go to today is named after a saint. As we pull up, my father and I wonder if it’s a Catholic saint. The cross hanging above the entrance is about 4 stories tall. We decide it’s got to be Catholic.

12:55 After waiting in the lobby for Dad to park the car, and taking the elevator down before it went up and letting another guy in crutches into the elevator after me who then got off before me and signed in before me, Dad signed me into the doctor’s office.

1:10 From my comfortable seat with my leg elevated (see picture below) I got called by the nurse. Only 10 minutes late! Not bad!

1:11 It turns out they only called me to fill out more forms. I stand there, balancing on one leg, filling out forms. No one seems to have any clue that I am here for an emergency. The nurse forgets to give me back my insurance card, and makes a face at me when I tell her this.

1:40 They finally call my name, for real! I head to the mysterious back room of helpful doctors that will make me feel better. I go to an exam room in the back, give the nurse some details about my condition, and wait for the doctor. It takes me about 5 minutes to find a comfortable way to rest my foot. I amuse myself by playing with some of the fake skeleton feet sitting on the window.

2:15 After exhausting all possible activities I can do with the fake foot and the nurse telling me that the doctor was still with the patient before me (I’m assuming that has to be the dude in the elevator) the doctor finally comes in.

2:16 The doctor briefly glances at his notes and grabs a pair of scissors and starts to cut off my cast.

2:17 I try to get the doctor to explain what he is doing.

2:18 The doctor tells me that I’m getting an ultra-sound to check for blood clots and that he has to take my cast off so they can do it. For the first time since the accident, I see what lies underneath. This scar is not going to be pretty, or subtle. While I’m glad to have the cast off (I have had dreams about ripping it off in my sleep) I get pretty scared when he finishes and says, “now don’t move or hit it in any way.”

2:19 I officially lose my shit. The cast, while annoying, was a nice protection. Now, I’m sitting on top of a table and they’re telling me I have to go down 4 floors to radiology, and the only thing between me and further injury is my own ability to not put any weight on or move my foot in any way. There is at least a small bandage protecting the stitches, and my sexy bootie, but they’re actually expecting me to get around on my own like this.

2:20 My dad goes to the lobby to see if he can find me a wheelchair, because there’s no way I’m risking doing this on crutches.

2:25 Dad gets back with the lobby wheelchair, and I ever so delicately get into it. The nurse hands me a prescription for the ultrasound and gives us directions to go to the first floor.

2:45 After carefully surveying the first floor, and only finding a cafeteria, an ESL orderly, and a couple of unhelpful gawkers, we decide the room labeled “imaging” is probably what the nurse meant by “radiology.”

3:00 After some discussion with the receptionist about who we are and what we are trying to do, they finally let me into the back room to yet again take my information. This whole time, I am holding up my right leg with my thigh muscle and my hands. My hips are really starting to hurt, and my shit is still lost. The woman taking my information makes me thing of the old soap commercials where they said, “aren’t you glad you use Dial? Don’t you wish everyone did?,” except that I’m thinking, “aren’t you glad you went to college? Don’t you wish everyone did?” The woman taking my info, clearly unconcerned that I’m wincing in pain, cannot spell ANYTHING. I can’t illustrate any of this without divulging the real names of me, my address, and my workplace, but let me tell you that none of these things are difficult to spell, and she still got it wrong when I did it letter by letter. Since it’s a Catholic hospital, they asked me for my religious affiliation. I told her “atheist,” and she couldn’t find it on her list. Looking over her shoulder at her computer with all the codes for denominations, I said, “it’s AFF - no affiliation.” She said, “oh! I was looking under the “E’s!” After 10 minutes of this, she finally looked at my prescription and told us that we were in the wrong place, since she thought I was getting X-rays.

3:15 We’re back in the waiting room, waiting for the ultra-sound tech to be ready at 3:30. Status of shit: still lost. Dad volunteers to go to the cafeteria to get some lunch. (Originally, I had thought that we’d be in and out with plenty of time to go to my cottage and see my cat that I miss dearly, and maybe stop for a salad at my usual place. Yeah, and on the night I broke my ankle, I also thought that they were going to slap a walking cast on me and I was going to have time to make it to the bar after the game. So silly, I am.)

3:23 Per my request, Dad returns with fruit and soda. Some of my shit returns.

3:30 It is time for my ultra-sound. The one time on this day something happens on time, and it’s when I’m eating my lunch.

3:32 Since Birmingham’s sister is an ultra-sound tech, I try and make some small talk with my lady about my vast knowledge of her profession. She is not impressed. I get up on the table ever so carefully, but at this point, every small movement hurts. She tells me to take off my pants so that she can ultra-sound my right thigh. Without telling me what is going on, she goos me up, and wands me in places that are very close to Molly-doctor territory. I am still trying not to put weight on the ankle, so I’m holding up my leg with my thigh muscle, and it’s cramping, badly. At the end, she goos under my knee, without bothering to get my pants out of the way, and a lot of the goo ends up in my pants. When she’s done, she wipes it off with a scratchy dry towel, and doesn’t come close to getting off all the goo. Despite my shit being 100% gone again, I ask her for the towel, and attempt to dab at the excess goo both on my leg and in my pants. As I get back into my wheelchair, I feel the squish on my bum and know that I’ve missed some.

3:45 I’m back in the waiting room, finishing the lunch that Dad got. It dawns on me that the ultra-sound tech never wanded any part of my leg that was in the cast. I wonder why I had to take it off. I wheel over to the receptionist window and see if I can get an answer to my question. She tells me that’s normal, and that my results will be ready in 5 minutes and I can discuss further questions with the doctor.

4:00 Still waiting for the results in this dingy basement-level waiting room. A nurse comes out from the receptionist’s desk and locks the door. The imaging place is closed for the day. They seem to know that I’m still here, but no one bothers to explain why 5 minutes has taken so long.

4:15 I ask them if they have the results yet. They do not. “5 minutes.”

4:20 The receptionist gets a phone call. I hear her say my name to the person on the other end. She hangs up. Goes back to her paperwork.

4:30 Another phone call. This one ends abruptly, and the receptionist says, “you can go upstairs to the doctor now.”

4:35 We get upstairs, and sign in. The waiting room is still full of people. Mom calls, and she’s worried. We told her we’d call her around 2:00 when we had information. The only information we have now is that this hospital sucks, I am deadly afraid of moving my ankle, and my shit has left the building, which is why I’m sitting in the corner, leaking water from my eyes like a New York City tap.

5:05 They call my name and I go back to the exam room.

5:15 The doctor comes in, and says there was no clot. This does not bring back my shit, as all that means is I wasted my day, although it is a bit of a relief, because it means I’m closer to going home. I ask him why they ultra-sounded my upper thigh when the pain was in my calf. He tells me something along the lines of “it’s all connected.” I ask him why it was necessary to take my cast off, then. He asks me what color cast I want today.

5:17 He re-bandages me, and puts a little cotton sock over my leg. I ask him why he had to take the first cast off. He says I have a choice of blue, red, green, pink, neon green, or white. He starts to wrap bandages over the sock, and I realize that means I have no more cotton batting to deal with, and that this cast will be a little more well-made. Like magic, my shit comes flying through the window, over the skeleton foot and into my heart. It turns out that it missed me.

5:30 I get down off the table. I have wasted the day, but at least I have a new cast. This thing it’s going to be a part of me for almost the rest of my 20’s, and I’m already emotionally attached. I have to get it off again in a week to get the stitches out, and I have to be really really careful about keeping it elevated above my waist (which is probably why I was having pain.) Perhaps I’ll chose a new color then, but for now, I went with Team Underpants red:

8:00 Home safe & sound in NJ. Since I’ll be in this thing through the holidays, maybe I’ll stick with red. It kind of feels like the cast Santa would have if he broke something.  I still don’t know why the old one came off in the first place, perhaps they’ll feel more like answering that question next week.