indiana territory

PARKVIEW NORTH - Part One

As it turned out Robert did not go to Parkview North yesterday. He was sent home with crutches and we were told Parkview North would call him at 8 a.m. to talk about getting him on that day's schedule with a surgeon who specializes in ankle and foot fractures. Yes!! He was to eat nothing after midnight.

On the way home last night, Alison and I looked at each other and she said, "We're going to need a wheelchair", so I stopped at Chronister's and, fortunately, they had one. Then we were faced with the fact that we had no training as to how to maneuver a man with a freshly broken broken leg that stuck straight out in front. How to get him out of the car; how to get him into the house, how to a lot of things.

I know I didn't handle it well, though Alison was a trouper. We got him settled on the sofa.

But this is not even the half of it.

The next day there was no call from Parkview North and when we called, they didn't exactly have a record of what was going on. They said for us to come at 2 pm and keep him on the nothing by mouth rule.

Okay, getting someone with a painful broken leg into a car from a wheelchair is even harder than getting him out - they even had trouble doing so a Parkview Noble, so I guess we should have anticipated it. Alison figured out a way to do it, but I was scared Robert would fall and slam his leg against the car and then the concrete . . . or just go directly down to the concrete - HARD.

He managed it, however, and my mother drove Alison and Robert to Parkview North while I stayed with Colin. I had told Mother to get on Lima Road and then it was just two left turns - one onto Dupont and one into the hospital itself.

However, right where Dupont and I-69 cross, right there just before you get to Parkview North - the road was closed for maintenance. Great! Just really great! Mother called to say that a very nice lady had helped them find the hospital after they were lost on side streets.

That is where we are now . . . or, rather, where they are.

It has been an eye-opening experience for me. I had it in my head you took a sick person to the hospital and they got them all just fine and then you brought them home to recuperate. I had no idea the modern medical world expected a nincompoop such as I to know how to move around a big person with a leg broken in three places, not to mention the tendon damage suffered in the ankle dislocation. (Not that I mind the effort, it is the fear of causing someone pain because I am not trained for such activity that upsets me.)

Alison tells me I am spoiled, that that is the way it is now. She is right; I am spoiled. I mean, doesn't the hospital know I am a baby boomer? That I expect everything to be "just right" for me?

But wait! Don't just look at it from my point of view. Imagine being the person with the broken leg with me as a wheelchair pusher . . . not a comforting thought.

posted by Jody @ 2:58 PM