On Mother's Day I was out hiking with my boyfriend (it was my kid's weekend with their Dad, so we had celebrated Mother's Day the weekend before). We ended up at a dam about an hour and a half from town. We were at the bottom of the dam and it was beautiful. We decided that we wanted to take each other's pictures, so my boyfriend went down near the water and I snapped his picture. Then it was my turn, so I went to go down by the water. Before I even knew what happened I was on the ground and heard my leg snap. My boyfriend came running down to see if I was ok. All I could say is, "I broke my leg". He said, "no way". Then I pulled my leg out from under me and I had weird indentations where the breaks were. No bone was showing, so that was good. When I looked at my foot and it was just kind of dangling there, I started to freak out a bit. Here we were in the middle of nowhere and I had a severly broken leg. We had no phone signal, so we couldn't call for helicopter. Thank goodness my boyfriend keeps all kinds of things in the bed of his truck! He was able to make me a splint out of a couple 2x4's he broke and some cut up tie down straps. After securing the splint, he had to drag me up the hill we were down and to the truck. This took about an hour as we could only go a couple inches at a time. Finally we got up to the truck and somehow I was able to get up in it. Then we headed to the nearest town which was about 45 minutes away. We got there and all they had was a clinic, but they said they could help. They got me in there and started my IV and got the pain meds going. They did some x rays and called an orthopedic surgeon in the town I'm from. The OS said to just go ahead and splint it and have me come see him the next day. So, they went ahead and lined the bones back up and gave me a thigh to foot splint. Let me tell you the whole lining up and splinting process was not fun. Even with all the morphine they gave me, it was horrible. After I was all done there, they got me back in the truck and we started our drive back home. They sent me home with pain killers, so I was pretty out of it the drive home and the next day.
The next morning I went to the OS and he explained that it didn't look like I would need any surgery. I was very happy about that. My tibia broke in half down near my ankle and my fibula broke in half up closer to my knee. He said that they lined back up good and it was a clean brake without alot of soft tissue damage. He told me to come back in 3 days for what I thought was going to be a cast. So, I went back home for another miserable 3 days. The pain was horrible. When I went back to the OS, they fitted me for this weird kind of brace. He explained that this is what I would have instead of a cast. I was pretty heavy on the pain meds, so I don't really remember all that he said, but this brace is supposed to be better because it makes the muscles and tendons work to hold the bone in place. I guess I will take his word for it! He said the x rays looked good and told me to come back in 6 weeks for more x rays. I am only 3 weeks into it now and it is driving me crazy. I am stuck in a wheelchair. I can only use crutches to get up to use the restroom. I did go back to work only a week after breaking my leg, but only because I need the money! I am a single mother of 4 children. Thank God for my boyfriend. He has helped me so much with the kids since I can't really get around too well. I am praying that when I go see OS at the end of June he tells me I can start bearing some weight on this leg. It's driving me crazy having to just lay around all the time. It gets very depressing at times too.