Swinging Into Trouble Part 1: Bella’s Broken Bones
Hello to all the members of the Total Physiocare family. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Bella and I am on the Physiotherapists and Clinic Leads here at Total Physiocare. I am jumping into the Therapy Threads to tell the story of when my life turned upside down.
On a fun weekend getaway to Echuca to celebrate Easter and eat all the chocolate my heart desires, I had an unfortunate accident involving a rope swing and a not-so-deep river. To cut the nitty gritty short, I found myself with 6-broken bones in my left foot!
Hobbling out of the water, with what looked like a golf-ball in my foot from all the swelling, I made it back to the river bank to sit down and gather myself. Whilst fighting the urge to throw up, looking pale as a ghost, my friends and family were brainstorming how to get me back up the hill we climbed down and to the car! Now the idea seemed logical at first, we will get the boys to carry me. On the flat ground this worked a charm, once we got to the little hill we realised this won’t work. So instead, lifted up like a damsel in distress, one of the boys decided he could carry me up alone. Unfortunately for my distressed-damsel self, we made it a few steps in before he slipped on some loose rocks and dropped me (he had to be fractures 5 & 6 I’m sure).
After that I somehow hopped my way up the hill, then back to two knights in shining armour to carry me off to the car and off to the hospital. As you could probably imagine, the pain was incredibly high. I pat myself on the back for not crying until I got to the hospital (I held it in as long as I could). Thankfully, my wait time was not too bad given I was the only one in the emergency room in a wheelchair crying in pain.
Morphine through an IV drip sure did the trick to wipe away my tears. From there, I was quickly assessed by one of the doctors, who then sent me off for an X-ray and CT scan. As the golf-ball in my foot grew, I knew I was not expecting good news.
Sure enough, my scans showed no soft tissue injuries (yay!), but a lovely variety of complexities in the 6-fractures of my midfoot bones. After a long lay in the hospital bed, passing the time with no phone and only Spongebob on the TV to keep me going, another nurse popped in to get me sorted in a backslab to keep my foot in place as I now remain non-weightbearing.
I had mentioned to the staff that I am a physio and will be able to organise my treatment and surgeon input back home, although in my morphine-state I accidently gave them the name of my known shoulder surgeon instead of my known foot surgeon (whoops!).
Once I was back home, I made no time to waste to get in to see the surgeon, and low behold surgery was a definite requirement for the extent of my injury. Booked in for surgery 2-weeks later, all I had to do in the meantime was get myself into a moonboot, non-weight bear and ELEVATE ICE ELEVATE ICE to get the swelling down for surgery.
Feeling like a toddler and an old woman at the same time, I secured myself a knee scooter to get around on, as well as a commode for the shower – the joys of non-weight bearing!
Stay tuned for my next blog on surgery and the post-op phase! Check out our Instagram and Facebook for videos of my journey.