Friday, March 27, 2009

Doctor! Doctor! Give me the News....

Well, there's nothing like spending a fine Thursday afternoon in the ER. It wasn't too bad actually and the fastest time I've ever spent in the ER. I've been staying at my parents' house this week (dad is out of town) and when I came home from work on Wednesday I see my mom sitting in the recliner with her foot wrapped up in a wash cloth. Since this is not the normal scene when I walk through the door I immediately knew what had happened. It had been raining all day on Wednesday and around 3:30 or so she decided to go get the mail out of the mailbox. She was standing on the porch with her left foot near the edge and she was trying to open her umbrella when her foot somehow slipped off the porch and she fell on the sidewalk. I looked at her ankle and it was swollen a little but not a whole lot and she was able to walk on it with just a slight pain. We decided to just wrap it up and put ice on it. We figured it was just a sprang. The next morning it was swollen twice it's side but she could still walk on it pretty good and didn't have much pain and figure the swellness was just from her walking on it the day before. So I went on to work and decided to go home and check on her at lunch and when I did her ankle had swollen even more and was now bruising with a huge red mark across so I decided we needed to at least go get it checked out so to ease our minds that it wasn't broken.

I should make a side note here that two years ago my mom broke her right ankle by doing the same thing...stepping off the porch and somehow falling. It's a little comical when I think about it but I won't dare laugh in her presence. (By the way, the ankle she hurt this time was her left and not the one she hurt a couple of years ago.)

So we headed to the ER and they put us in the thing called FastTrack. I had never been a part of that in the ER and it was wonderful! First of all, if you have to go to the ER go in the afternoon, there is hardly anyone there. In fact, the longest time mom had to wait was for me to find a stinking parking place in that wretched place. We only sat in the waiting room for about 10-15 mins when we were called back. We were taken to this room with four beds (each with their own curtain for "privacy"). There we sat for probably 30 mins when they wheeled in this huge contraption of a machine and ordered me out into the hallway. Turns out this was the x-ray machine. How cool was that? Mom didn't have to be wheeled out to get it done. The tech said that since it was digitized that the doctor would get the results in just few minutes. So we waited about 30-45 mins more when the doctor came in. Now, if I could freeze a moment in time, this would be it...the moment the doctor walked into our curtain area. I had my own personal George Clooney moment. He was GORGEOUS! Dark hair, dark eyes, tanned skin, no ring...perfection! His name was Aaron and was the sweetest guy I had ever met and in the process learned that he played soccer. *sigh* He had a copy of mom's x-ray where we learned that she did in fact break her ankle but it wasn't a bad break. It's actually cracked where a tiny piece of bone chipped off when her ankle hit the brick. He told us that he's had this same injury happen to both of his ankles playing soccer and that it will heal fairly quickly if she keeps her weight off of it. He said that she didn't really need to follow up with an orthopedic doctor if she didn't want to (he never did) but I think she probably will just to make sure that it's healing properly. Soon after that, they discharged her and we were home by 3:30 (after a stop at Starbucks).

So if you are in the Nashville area and need to go to Baptist Hospital's ER make sure you ask for Dr. Aaron (don't know last name). I'm thinking of breaking my ankle just to see his gorgeous face again. Have a great weekend!

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