10/11/2023

Things were going amazing in my life. I was the happiest I’ve ever been, I’d just started my new job, we were getting ready to get our shitty sliding glass door replaced…

Then things turned upside down.

It was a cool, sunny fall day. Brandy had asked me to run to South Side Drug on Church St to see if they had her prescription ready. I’ve been there a hundred times before and more often than not, I park on the street across from the pharmacy. It was no different this day.

I sat in the drug store for quite some time before being told there was an issue with the prescription. They gave me instructions on how to get it corrected and at about 4:00, I left the store.

The drug store sits in the dead end of a three way stop. As you exit the store, you almost immediately enter a crosswalk that crosses Church St. I walked up to the crosswalk and there was a line of cards waiting to turn left onto Church St off of Weller. This would direct these drivers through the crosswalk I was about to enter.

One car passed, there was no one else coming from my left as the next car approached the stop sign so I stepped into the crosswalk. I turned to my right to make sure no one was coming from that direction, and there wasn’t, so I turned back to my left to see the car that had been at the stop sign on Weller bearing down on me.

As clichéd as it sounds, what happened next seems like it happened in slow motion. I thought she was going to stop, but she didn’t. In fact, it seemed like she was still accelerating into me.

I was thrown up on to the hood of her car, my face making direct and unimpeded contact with her windshield. I felt the safety glass buckle and the hood under my body crumple.

The driver came to a stop and I was thrown 15-20 feet from her car. As I was flying back, the only thing I thought was, “don’t smack the pavement with your head.”

I did my best to keep my head from bouncing off the road and landed square on my back. My right arm was contorted in a most unnatural way and was not responding to my movements. I knew it was broken.

A bystander approached and asked if I was OK. I took my phone from my pocket and asked her to call my wife. By this time, I could feel blood pooling in my eye sockets. Brandy answered and I told her I’d been hit by a car and that my arm was broken. She said she’d met me at Ottumwa General Hospital where the paramedics would take me.

As I lay there waiting for help, I knew better than to try to move. The paramedics would stabilize my neck with a collar and put me on a back board.

The fire department, paramedics and police all arrived in short order. As I lay on my back being attended to by the EMTs, even in the condition I was in, I was cracking jokes with them.

They asked me the standard questions, my name, date of birth, where I was, what day it was, and so on. I sufficiently answered their questions before I was approached by a police officer. I answered his standard questions, then he asked if he needed to call anyone. I told him I’d already spoken to my wife, and he was gone.

Meanwhile, the EMT attending to my arm was in the process of cutting off the $70 hoodie I’d just gotten on our trip to Crested Butte in June. I gave her a hard time for that, jokingly of course.

The collar they had on hand was entirely too small for my neck, especially with the hood from said hoodie bunched up under it, so the EMT sat and held my head steady as they worked to get an inflatable body splint on me. They splinted my arm then all six of them hoisted me onto the ambulance gurney.

I was given pain meds as soon as I got in the van and we took off to the hospital.

I was triaged quickly and the attending nurse tried wiping the dried blood from my eyes, dragging shards of glass across my skin as she did so.

Brandy and Craig showed up soon after and we sat and began the waiting game that has been so prevalent since the accident.

Eventually, Craig took Brandy back to South Side Drug to get the car, and before I knew it, she was back.

I was taken to get a CT scan done to make sure I wasn’t suffering any internal injuries. That whole fiasco was a mess, thanks to me simply being too large for the CT tube.

As I was being helped up after the imaging was done, someone grabbed my arm, RIGHT where it was broken. I could clearly feel the bones grinding against each other.

*shudder*

I was taken back to my room where x rays were done and blood was drawn. We were told my arm would have to be operated on, something they could not do in Ottumwa, so they were waiting for a review by the trauma surgeon at the University of Iowa Medical Center. It was implied that we may be headed to Iowa City that night for surgery.

The hours ticked by, Brandy was super uncomfortable sitting in the banquet chair provided to her. She was getting cranky, I was getting cranky, finally we were told they needed to do another set of x rays for the trauma surgeon. They wheeled the portable x ray into the room again and took another handful of shots and again, we waited.

Finally, at 3:30, we were told to go home, we’d hear from someone at U of I Ortho later Thursday or early Friday.

Brandy spent the day Thursday on the phone trying to get something going with them, to no avail.

Same thing Friday, until, at the end of the day Friday, they called to schedule me for a consult Monday morning.

As the days progressed, my right hand began to swell. I was getting a fierce tingling in it and it was super cold. This was concerning so we decided to try going to the ER in Iowa City, perhaps they could squeeze me in for a surgery while we were there, or, at least, call that my consult so I could get to scheduling the surgery.

The medical resident I was assigned was great. Very kind and compassionate, and cared about my malady. She called in the resident ortho doctor and it was like night and day. He couldn’t care less about what was going on with me, and I felt like I was a burden to him just being there.

He took the splint off, then left to get his attending physician.

The condition of my hand improved while the splint was off but when the attending ortho doc came in, he just put another splint right back on. He sent me off for x rays, told us to keep my appointment the next morning and disappeared into the night.

After x rays were taken, we continued the waiting game once more, finally being released at about 3:00. We made the short drive to a nearby hotel where we’d booked a room and settled in for a quick nap before my consult in four hours.

I got up the next morning and took the hotel shuttle to the hospital. I was in a sleeveless muscle shirt, filthy sweatpants and slippers. I was funky, to say the least.

My appointment was scheduled for 8:30, and I was taken back promptly but the doctor didn’t show up until 10:30. We had a brief discussion about my options, I immediately opted for surgery and was told I’d hear from the scheduler the next day to schedule me for a Wednesday surgery.

Later that day, I was contacted by the OR and was told my surgery was set for 1:30 pm Wednesday, check in at noon. Meanwhile, I tried my best to be active at work, ya know, seeing as how I wasn’t even a month on the job by this point. I checked in with by boss and coworkers on Tuesday, did some administrative work in preparation for my absence, and then Wednesday morning, we headed back to Iowa City.

We checked in to the hotel then quickly boarded the shuttle, arriving at the hospital at about 11:30. We wound our way through the labyrinth maze and found ourselves at the OR check in desk just before noon. I was checked in, went through the standard rigamarole with the OR nurse, anesthesia, the surgeons and everyone, then, was given a gown to get into. I stripped to my birthday suit and shimmied into the paper gown, then sat at waited. When they finally came to get me, just before 2:00, I kissed Brandy goodbye then was carted off to the OR suite.

The operating room was abuzz with activity, nurses prepping tools, anesthesiologists getting meds ready for me, a nurse talking to me likely trying just to keep me calm.

They put a mask on me, told me it was just oxygen and to breathe deeply. Soon, they said, “OK, we’re putting you under now. See you in…”

…and that was it. The next thing I knew, I was being wheeled to recovery. I was placed on the floor and nurses tried having conversation with me. I don’t know how coherent I was, but there didn’t seem to be any alarm.

I was approached on my left by a woman identifying her as a urologist. She told me they had placed a catheter, and that there was some sort of trauma experienced during its insertion. She peeled by gown back and started fondling my penis. It was odd, being handled by someone that wasn’t Brandy. She called someone over, she was joined by another woman who joined in on the fun down there. They apparently gathered the info they needed, covered me and left.

After some time in recovery, I was wheeled into a room and was told, despite my desires, I was going to be spending the night. That was fine. I was joined shortly by Brandy who told me it was all of the sudden 8:30 at night. She stayed with me for a bit, gave me a candy bar and a Coke, then took an Uber back to the hotel to try to get some rest. I laid in the hospital room alone for the rest of the night, being attended to by a series of nurses, doctors and housekeepers.

Early Thursday morning, the assisting surgeon came in to talk to me, the first thing he said was, “You’ve got a goddamned big arm!”

Apparently, the primary surgeon, who’s been doing these surgeries for over a decade, had only ever had to use a 12 hole plate on a humerus once before.

I had a brief conversation with him, the nurse came and removed my catheter, Brandy showed up, I had x-rays taken and was eventually discharged. We made the hour and a half drive home where I began my recovery.

I was prescribed oxycodone, Tylenol, a muscle relaxer, a higher-dose aspirin and a stool softener to take, mostly as needed (except for the aspirin, that was to be taken twice a day until gone.)
I have since struggled with some severe swelling of my arm and hand, bloody urine, and severe back pain that’s prevented me from having a full night’s sleep in my bed since my return.

I’ve returned to work to the best of my ability and have seen steady, but too slow improvement in the use of my arm and hand and have been stuck in the house pretty much in totality until the weekend before Halloween.

Having Brandy take care of me for a change, while nice, has been taxing emotionally. Not being able to contribute has taken me out of my element and I feel useless and like a burden.

I have been trying to use my arm and hand but have frequently wound up hurting myself. Far be it from me to tell Brandy that though, all I’d hear from her then is “I told you not to overdo it!”

I have my first post-op followup with the ortho department in Iowa City this Thursday, November 2, and I’m hoping the dressing can come off and stitches can be removed so I can at least take a FULL shower for a change.

Obviously, travels and activities have come to a grinding halt, but the trip we took to Keosauqua on October 29th was a nice respite from the growing cabin fever I’d been feeling.

I’m really looking forward to being fairly compensated for my pain and suffering as, if the compensation is adequate, I have a very special trip I’m hoping to be able to book. Stay tuned for that.

Until then, I will have to be satisfied with the trip to the Des Moines area for the Blue October concert on November 29.

God, this sucks…

-Phil