A Heeling Experience

Brad and I have been waiting for this weekend since we heard we were moving to Germany. What's more German than Oktoberfest in Munich? I can't think of anything. Bags were packed, room was booked. A weekend full of men in lederhosen, giant beers, and oompah bands. Unfortunately, that wasn't in the cards for us this year. I traded it for men in white coats, giant amounts of pain medicine and a foot that looks like an oompah loompa (thank you iodine).

So, what happened?

Here goes:

Thursday evening Melissa stopped by to return some dishes I had left at their place. She had had a rough couple of days so I told her to go get comfy and we'd have a glass of wine and watch Dancing with the Stars. Brad had a flag football game so it worked out quite perfectly. Stella's timing is impecable and decided in the middle of the show she needed to go outside. She did her business and I was headed for the "doggie bag" dispenser on the other side of the street. And like I've done a thousand times, I hopped up on the ledge that separates the yard from the sidewalk and as I did the ledge gave way and ended up landing on the back of my heel. Fifty pounds of concrete....boom.

I thought at first maybe it just landed funny and I had a sprained ankle so I told myself to just "walk it off, walk it off." But I couldn't walk. So I hobbled over to the parking lot and leaned up against a neighbors car then made the mistake of looking down. Lots of blood. Crap.

I knew our windows were open so I started yelling for Melissa. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I made it to the front of the apartment and started buzzing our door. By then a neighbor across the street came running over. Turns out her son saw the whole thing happen from his bedroom window and he got his mom out of the shower to come help me. The rest happened pretty fast and is a bit blurry. Brad was just around the corner and he rushed me to the hospital in Wiesbaden. We had no idea where to go and couldn't read any of the signs around the hospital so he followed an ambulance in and fortunately that worked.

I sat in a wheelchair in the emergency room waiting for Brad to park the car and a doctor that could speak English. Until then, I just sat in a hallway cursing myself for not learning German.

I was moved into a room where I managed to get up on one of those chair/bed things that they cover in butcher paper. I'm laying on my stomach and a nurse comes in to clean the wound. She removes the bandage that was there to stop the bleeding and as she does my darling husband goes "eeeoooohhhh!!!" That helped.

You know what's really funny? I was still thinking at this point that if they could just stitch me up real quick we could get home and still leave for Munich in the morning. Wrong. Several doctors came in to take a look. One told me I was very lucky that it missed my achilles tendon but the fact that he was looking at it was not good. My achilles and interior tendon were visable and it was not going to be possible to stitch it up like normal. It would need...dum dum dum....surgery. Lovely.

Then we played the waiting game. I stayed on the butcher paper table for 3 1/2 hours before they finally took me to the operating room (with zero pain medicine). And lucky me, operations on the foot are a tricky matter and local anesthesia wouldn't do the trick. The anesthesiologist told me to look on the bright side, I would know what it would feel like to have an epidural for down the road when I had a baby.

They had to give me a spinal block paralyzing the bottom half of my body before getting started. It took four attempts to find the right spot in my back. After he was finished I let him know that I would not be having children, thanks to him. Kidding, of course, but I wasn't at the time.

The surgery only took about 20 minutes and while I was awake for all of it, I didn't feel a thing. Being numb from your belly button down is a very bizarre feeling. The doctors moved me from the operating table to a bed and I didn't feel any of it. It was as if I was floating.

They had to keep an eye on me until the anesthesia started to wear off at which point I was moved into a room with another woman. I finally got to see Brad but only for a minute. By this point at had been 7 hours since we arrived and was now 4 am. I sent him home to take care of Stella and get some sleep. And that was that.

Morning came and I woke up to the most beautiful view of Wiesbaden. The room had big windows all the way across that opened up to a big balcony overlooking the city. I had breakfast in bed and someone else brought by newspapers. I wan't aware that I was staying at the W. Shnazzy.

Unfortunately, the pain medicine wore off and it was all downhill from there. I would have taken the epidural again if they'd let me. The main doctor came in to change the bandages and I don't think he realized where the wound was because he scooped up my foot grabbing my heel. I would have slapped him if I could have reached him. The pain medicine they were giving me was doing nothing. Brad finally had had enough and told them to give me something stronger. Needless to say, they decided to keep me for another night.

I woke up to much less pain and anxious to get home. They set me up with some crutches (which are much different than what we use in the States) and I was on my way.

I still can't put an ounce of pressure on it and there's the occasional bit of pain but it's so nice to be home. Brad made me blueberry pancakes for dinner and Stella is doing her part to keep me entertained.

So we may have missed out on Oktoberfest this year but that only means next year will be TWICE as fun!