On Tuesday March 8th, I spent a glorious day
skiing by myself at Alta ski resort.
I usually work Tuesdays but
luckily had the day off and still had my regular babysitter. So up to Alta I
went.
I lucked out on that day that both
Baldy Chutes and Devil’s castle were open for business. These two runs consider a good deal of
hiking from the top of Sugarloaf lift to get to the top of the run. Baldy requires a solid boot pack hike
up to 11,000 feet (about 30 minutes for me), Devil’s castle requires a killer
right side step hike as far as you want to go to catch fresh powder. Since I opted to ski Baldy first, by
the time I got to Devil’s Castle, the powder hounds already skied out most of
the earlier part of the run which meant I side-stepped about 35 minutes to
climb to my glorious powder run. Spending
the day hiking and skiing through powder and sunny skies filled my soul. I ended the day thinking “If I don’t
ski another day this season, I now feel completely satisfied with my ski
season”. A good attitude to have
considering it would indeed be my last day of the season.
I should have injured myself
climbing 700 vertical feet with my skis on my shoulder to ski a chute only 20
feet wide. A ski accident blazing
through 16 inches of fresh powder on a blue-bird day in March would have made
for a much cooler story to re-tell.
But sometimes the most ordinary day can bring extraordinary events and
that ordinary day occurred 3 days after that extraordinary ski day.
Friday
morning started out great.
Michelle, my 6 year old, was ready for school with time to spare; which
was, in its own right, miraculous.
We engaged in a game with 11 month-old Emily that Michelle likes to call
“Baby Tarantula”. The game is
simple. It involves me holding
Emily while Michelle runs away from us.
Emily makes a snickering laugh when we chase after Michelle. The snickering must be what baby
tarantulas sound like, hence the name. Baby Tarantula. As I made a pivot to
turn the other direction, I tripped. Just like that. I could feel the weight of my body thrusting forward with
the baby clutched in my arms.
My first attempt to catch myself failed. To avoid dropping the baby, or worse, falling on her, I
lunged my left leg out in front of me with the baby in my arms, but failed
to bend my knee as the load of her weight lurched my body and hers over my
outstretched leg. Emily landed
gently to the floor unscathed. I
felt my left hip torque outwards with a stretch and a pop, like the leg popped
out of the hip and snapped back.
At that exact second, I knew it was bad. Pain.
Excruciating pain. Whatever just happened in there rendered my left leg
useless. Any movement that fired
the muscles in my leg sent excruciating pain and weakness through my thigh and
hip.
Never
in my life have I been so grateful to live near my family. Michelle had to be at school in 30
minutes. My husband Barry was out of town and I was supposed to pick him up
from the airport at 10:30, it was now 8:00.
“Michelle, hand me my phone. I am hurt and can’t get up. We need to find someone to get you to
school.” Within 5 minutes,
it was all arranged. My brother
in-law would take Michelle to school, my Dad would take me to the hospital, my
Mother in-law would come and watch the baby. I left Barry a text to catch an Uber ride home from the
airport. And of course while we waited
for the troops to arrive, Emily pooped.
And I don’t mean a cute little poop. I mean a huge-smelly-fill-the-diaper-near-blow-out poop that
required immediate attention! This
is the time when I am so grateful that my kids were spaced out far enough to
have an older child who truly is helpful.
After helping me change Emily’s diaper, my brother in-law arrived and
Michelle went off to school
When
my dad showed up, it became quite evident that I could not weight-bear on the
left leg and there was no way he could get me in the car by himself. We called
the paramedics who helped me into the back of my dad’s car. Without knowing what was going on
inside my leg & hip, we chose the nearest ER at St Mark’s Hospital, even
though the hospital was out of network for my insurance. According to EMTALA, my insurance
should cover an Emergency at any hospital. I had excellent care.
They treated my pain and shortly after, a negative X-ray was
confirmed. But the pain was still
terrible and I could not bear weight on the left leg, even with 1 mg of
Dilaudid on board. The ER doc knew I needed an MRI, but I needed to transfer hospitals
or be faced with the possibility that my insurance would leave me with an
outrages bill for a MRI at an out of network hospital.
So with a fuzzy head full of
narcotics, we packed me back into my dad’s Rav 4 to the University Hospital ED
so I could get the MRI to confirm what I already felt had happened. As I lay outstretched in the back seat
of his car trying to wrap my head around the pain, I groaned to my dad “It
feels like my hamstrings ripped off my ischial tuberosity.” A couple hours later, the MRI report in
my hand read “complete avulsion of the left hamstring involving the
semimembranosous and conjoint tendon with distal retraction of 3cm.” Indeed, my hamstring (all 3 muscles)
had ripped clean off the ischial tuburosity.
The hamstring muscle group is made of
3 muscles. The semitendinosus and
biceps femoris muscles join in a common tendon (conjoint tendon). Both the conjoint tendon and the semimembranosus tendon attach to that bone in your
pelvis that you sit on (the ischium).
That spot where the tendons connect is the ischial tuberosity.
At
8:00 PM my sister relieved my sweet dad so he could go home. Finally, at around 9 PM, with injury
confirmed, I was sent home with crutches (toe touch weight bearing), pain meds,
and instructions to follow up with a sports medicine ortho surgeon within the week. I was sent home to enjoy a weekend of
uncertainty, unable to bend my knee or hip, unable to pick up my baby off the
floor (or anything off the floor for that matter), unable to sit, or
drive. I left knowing this was an
injury that would take months to heal and regain pre-injury function.
No comments:
Post a Comment