That’s how we kicked off last Saturday. The weather was beautiful so I had walked down to the farmers market to do some shopping and Brad was meeting a buddy to ride bikes. As I mentioned before, we recently bought some new mountain bikes for each of us. While I love to ride, I’m not much for the “serious” trails….apparently Brad isn’t either. Not five minutes into the ride, he took a spill after dodging a tree trunk and BAM! Bike went one way, Brad the other and shoulder first. He told his buddy he was pretty sure he’d broken his collar bone.
When I arrived in the emergency room, I was bracing myself to see my husband’s clavicle jutting up through his neck or something….fortunately, that wasn’t the case. He was covered in dirt and in a fair amount of pain but all in all, he was in good spirits. It was no surprise that it was going to take FOREVER for an actual doctor to come see him. We decided if they didn’t hurry up we were going to lick all of the tongue depressors and put them back. Maybe next time.
An X-ray quickly confirmed what we had expected – broken collar bone. The bad news was that it had broken right in the middle and into several pieces which meant surgery would be necessary. A titanium plate would need to be inserted to reconnect the bones. The doc said Wednesday would be good. Pause. “Excuse me doc, did you say Wednesday? That’s not for 4 days!” He wasn’t kidding; Brad walked around with a bone literally trying to poke through his skin for FOUR days! And he did this with nothing stronger than ibuprofen. Such a manly man.
But the fun was just beginning. They asked that he arrive Tuesday at 8:30 am to fill out some paperwork prior to his surgery on Wednesday. Little did we know, this was going to be an all day affair. We spoke with all sorts of people, of course they ALL had the same questions (are you allergic to anything, do you smoke, etc.) and they ALL made us wait an absurd amount of time before seeing us. The last person we had to talk to was a surgeon but surprise surprise, he was in surgery and wouldn’t be out for another 2 hours. By this time we’re starving so we went home for lunch and came back with a deck of cards. Another 2 hours later, in walks the doctor. And do you know what he had to say?! “Do you have any questions?”
Blink. Blink blink.
The words “are you serious?” shot out of my mouth before I even had a chance to stop myself. We just waited 4 hours to see you and you want to know if WE have any questions. He admitted the organizational skills on how they do things were not exactly perfect. I’ll say. But that was that and we were done for the day. Finally.
Now then, are you ready for the tale of The Longest Day E.V.E.R?
We were back at the hospital at 7 am the following morning and Brad was shown to his “room.” I’m not sure what we expected, I guess something similar to what I had when I was in the hospital. Mmmm, not so much. Think a notch above what you’d expect in a 3rd world country. Ok, so that’s a tiny bit dramatic but not really. I should have taken a picture. I suppose it was clean enough but there was ZERO privacy between him and his neighbor, there was an old television but it didn’t work, nothing on the walls except for a crucifix and crappy photo (some guy took a picture of a field of sunflowers but it’s from behind so you can’t actually see the flowers, dumbest thing I’ve ever seen) and the bathroom and shower weren’t even in the same room. Ugh.
The nurse told him there were several surgeries scheduled before him but it should be around 11 or 12. Noon came and went. As did 1….and 2…..and 3. We knew our pup was probably crossing her legs by this point so I ran home to take care of her. Of course, the minute I left they rolled him down into the O.R…..then rolled him back up because someone with an emergency came in (note to self – breaking your collar bone is NOT an emergency in the eyes of doctors. Got it.) He didn’t have to wait too much longer and according to the nurse I harassed for answers when I came back, he went into surgery at 3:30.
Please note this surgery that they claim to perform almost daily typically takes around an hour, maybe two.
Tick tock. Tick tock. By 6:30 I’m starting to get a tad nervous that no one has come to let me know how he’s doing. No one seemed to have any answers. All I could do was wait. And wait I did. It wasn’t until just after 8 pm that a nurse walked in and told me Brad was in ICU but that I could go see him.
I think the nurse could tell I was on the brink of losing it and quickly explained that this wasn’t uncommon, they probably just wanted to keep an eye on him following surgery. (He could have led in with that little tid bit of information. I’m just sayin.)
I spent the next hour talking to my completely out-of-it husband who now looked like an oompa loompa, thanks to all of the iodine. An hour later, he was taken up for X-rays and finally back to his room.
Deep sigh of relief. The day was finally over. Well, almost. Stella took it upon herself to eat, not chew, but eat one of Brad’s socks then proceeded to vomit it up in multiple places throughout the house. Lovely.
Brad spent the next few days in the hospital. He kept entertained with the first season of Mad Men on the iTouch and kickin’ my booty at gin rummy. The minute he had the okay to leave on Saturday, we were outta there!
So there you have it folks. The Bingham’s are keeping the German surgeons busy. Now both of us will return home with some pretty awesome scars from our Adventures in Deutschland.
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