This has become a legend in the O’Brien household. 2009 began with my car getting hit not once, not twice, but three times IN ADDITION to being broken into AND the window getting stuck in an open position (in Minnesota in January…) from a break-in 4 years ago (apparently we are lucky it has been working this long). None of the collisions were our fault and two were hit and runs (i.e. the girl who hit Will paid for one bumper, but we now have a hole in the other)….Needless to say we have become good friends with the workers at the auto body shop and they are actually really wonderful and helpful-they have even met Mosby and recommended dishes at local restaurants to us. Note that all of these things took place before the month of February!!! After the first two incidents, we thought, “this is weird” but after the fifth problem we were looking for hidden cameras thinking Ashton Kutcher might be around the corner waiting to tell us we were punked and that we actually won a brand new car and maybe a trip to Hawaii or something. Maybe we should be the first couple featured on Extreme Car Makeover- Ty could come and demolish civic and replace it with a shiny new one with seats made out of baseball bats or canoe paddles or whatever hobby we tell him we have.
We were hoping this bizarre case of bad luck would stay behind in January. After all, I was headed to southern California for my friend Ashley’s wedding over Valentine’s day weekend. I was going to escape the frigid temps, spend time with some of my favorite people in the world, and enjoy all of the wedding festivities. We had been planning for weeks. Before leaving for the airport, though, we thought we’d give Mosby some extra fun and bring him to a dog park so he could run to his heart’s content. Long story short, Friday the 13th + ice covered dog park (there was literally no grass or snow showing in the entire place) + really fast dog + dansko’s (which have zero traction) + spindly wrists = TROUBLE. Mos was loving the park and was running towards me as fast as he could, but he couldn’t stop on the ice or go around me. I was actually expecting him to run into me, but I figured he would jump up so I was bracing myself for going backwards and figured at worst I would just land on my butt like most of us Minnesotans do at least once a winter season. However, he didn’t jump so I went right over top of him with no time to brace myself. I knew pretty much right away that my wrist was broken, but having broken my wrist/hand 3 different times as a kid (the spindly wrists), I think I was more upset that I was going to miss my flight. I figured, throw a cast on that thing, and let’s get to the airport!
It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was a little different than my other breaks. Taking off my coat at the ER was the only time that I actually looked at my wrist and let’s just say I couldn’t look at it after that…yuck. They had to reset my bone, and with all the expenses of our modern health care, the “high-tech” contraption they used to do this was made of a clothes hanger and four Chinese finger traps hanging from it (the things that you got as kids where you put your pointer fingers in either end and when you pulled, they would be stuck inside). The doc hung my hand upright from the traps and then hung weights over my bicep to pull the bone down and then about 3 people pushed it back into place. Crazy, huh?!
The next week we met with the orthopedic surgeon- I had broken the bone in about 3 places, breaking a section off and knocking the joint out of its place. So, they pieced me back together with a plate and some screws. Losing the use of your dominant hand is pretty challenging and Will needed to continue on with work and school, so my mom came up to help out for a few days after the surgery and my dad took the dog down to Caledonia for a couple of weeks. Those first three weeks were pretty painful and challenging, but by the end I could move my fingers pretty well and my life was slowly returning to a routine. I was excited to get my removable splint and get on with recovery. Unfortunately, things were not healing quite right. At my two week appointment I was unable to move my wrist past 90 degrees (think handshake) to a palm up position. You know there’s something wrong when a whole team of doctors come in to check out your x-rays! Apparently some bone was sliding out of joint or something when I would turn my hand. This was very discouraging to hear. They were going to try to gradually turn my wrist and hope that my muscles would grow strong enough to hold the bone in place, but if that didn’t work I’d have to have another surgery.
So for the next two weeks I gradually twisted my wrist around about 1 degree at a time and velcroed it in place with this crazy butterfly splint thing. Eventually I did get it palm-up and the x-rays looked good at my last doctor’s appointment. So it looks like I might not need another surgery! So now I am doing a lot of physical therapy, working on getting my wrist to turn back to palm down (which I’ve pretty much gotten, but now it won’t go palm up anymore) and to bend my wrist, which is pretty pathetic right now. I have decided that my priorities for things to be able to do again are: 1. Type 2. Write 3. Eat with a utensil (I can always use my left) 4. CANOE 5. Play tennis 6. Throw a baseball. Typing and writing are getting there, my hand just starts to hurt after a few minutes. The rest seem like a long ways off, but I am really hoping. Given the break, it’s not realistic to expect 100% functioning, so these are my goals:)
So, we are thinking that we have some AMAZING luck coming our way for the rest of 2009 to balance out the beginning:) Despite the challenges, we have been blessed with wonderful family support, great friends, understanding coworkers, and a great marriage. Poor Will had to do the work of three hands (sometimes four because my left hand isn’t good for much) all while finishing up his master’s thesis! But we are slowly on our way back to normal and now are looking forward to his graduation. Wow, if you made it to the end of this post, good job! We have just been so focused on getting through each day and catching up on work, we have been seriously M.I.A.- so we thought we’d catch you up. We are hoping as appointments, muscle pain, and academic stress gradually diminish over the next couple of months, our social lives will be able to pick up again and we’ll be able to catch up in person!
Kirsten
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