A Broken Ankle – December 2024

Not a travel adventure, but an adventure nonetheless

On Friday, December 20, 2024, I broke my right ankle. It was a clear morning, and I was the first juror to park in the designated juror parking row outside the county’s court building. After several days of snow, slush, and rain, conditions were actually the best of the week. The weather had warmed, and the only remaining visible snow was on the grassy median between parking rows. I had been unexpectedly called up for jury duty, then even more unexpectedly chosen to be a juror on a trial case. For several days of trial, I dressed up, wearing my leather-soled La Canadienne boots and picking my way slowly down the icy ramp of the courthouse. On this Friday morning, the jury was going to be holed up in a room for deliberations, so I wore jeans and Blundstone boots. I arrived 30 minutes early to review my notes, and I was rehearsing in my mind the speech to my fellow jurors I had spent a sleepless night thinking about. I remember shouldering my work tote, confident in my rubber-soled boots on dry ground, and striding purposefully around the end of the parking row toward the courthouse building. I did not see the isolated patch of black ice over the smooth black asphalt until I felt the sudden slip. I vividly remember the crack and terrible pain in my right ankle as I fell.

There are so many ironies. I had just returned from Reykjavik, Iceland after a delightful week with a girl friend. I had traipsed over ice without a care in the world, in those same Blundstone boots. We navigated slippery steps for the best photographs of waterfalls, and picked our way in the darkness across slick hotel parking lots to see the Northern Lights. We speed-walked over icy steps in between geothermal pools at the Blue Lagoon – all without incident. After 3 months of consistent strength training, I’m in the best shape of my life, and had just been admiring the muscle definition in my calves that morning. I suppose this is when things happen: when you least expect it, and when it’s not supposed to happen to you.

After the initial shock of blinding pain, I found myself on the ground, wondering whether everything in my purse had spilled. While my fall wasn’t witnessed, it was 8:30am on a work day, and courthouse staff were all arriving to work. Within seconds, a lady appeared between parked cars, and stopped to render aid. A deputy also appeared quickly, leading me to suspect that my fall was caught on the many cameras that monitor the courthouse property. Half a dozen kind bystanders refused to leave until I was safety off the ground. With adrenaline pumping, I had the delusional thought that perhaps I could slap an ice pack on the ankle and continue with jury duty. Thus I declined an ambulance, and accepted a wheelchair up to the jury room. It was on that wheelchair ride to the 5th floor that I knew it wasn’t just a sprain. Every minor bump on the wheelchair was excruciating, as if something was unstable in the ankle itself. When we arrived, I slipped my hand into my boot, and could feel the displaced tibial bone where it anatomically should not be. It was obvious even to a urologist that it was broken.

Luck is a matter of perspective. Was I unlucky to have picked that particular path, for my encounter with the only patch of black ice in the parking lot? Or was I lucky to have fallen where help was immediately available, having hurt my ankle but protected my head, in the early morning when the road was empty of cars that could have easily run me over? When I called Won to give me a ride to the hospital, he had just finished the last of his important work meetings before the holiday. We were in the emergency room in less than half an hour, and I was cared for by a procession of former colleagues. Radiographs were taken, and concerned friends were calling. The bad news was that both the tibial and fibular bones were broken and displaced, a bimalleolar fracture. Yet within an hour, 3 different orthopedic surgeons had weighed in (consensus: surgery), the injured limb was splinted, and I was on the schedule for an ORIF (open reductive internal fixation) the next business day. If you’ve been to an emergency room lately, you’ll know that this sort of speed is rare. Won observed accurately that he expected professionalism, which we saw in spades, but what he didn’t expect was genuine kindness. One colleague said simply, “we take care of each other.” As one who is not used to being on the receiving end of help, I was humbled by the kindness, and incredibly grateful.

Humility, empathy, gratitude, and more humility. The weekend passed in a blur of new, unpleasant experiences. I now have a better understanding of how awful it is for patients to wait for surgery, as I’m grateful I only had to deal with an unstable fracture for 2 days. We had the good sense to get a house with no stairs, joking that we could age in place. Even so, the journey to the bathroom might as well be an alpine hike. Showering with a trash bag and duct tape resulted in a water leak, and subsequent hour desperately trying to blow dry the dripping bandages with a hair dryer. Multiple purchases were made on Amazon with expedited shipping: mobility aids, watertight foot covers, anti-slip devices. Won has been the sweetest, strongest, most careful nurse. We had thought that we were decades from some of the indignities of immobility; never thought I’d suddenly need help balancing on the commode.

The Monday before Christmas was ORIF day. I had a seamless, painless experience. Familiarity with the pre-surgical process means that instructions and directions are not overwhelming. I described to Won what to expect, step by step, so he could anticipate who each person was and their role: the check-in clerk, the financial services staff, the pre-op nurse, the anesthesiologist, the surgeon, the OR circulating nurse. Several of my former colleagues dropped by, and checked in on Won in the waiting room (where he ill-advisedly watched a YouTube video on ORIF surgery). I don’t remember much after the IV Versed. Before I knew it, I was waking up in the recovery room, exceedingly glad for the popliteal and adductor nerve blocks that made the next 24 hours pain-free. I don’t wish the experience of a broken ankle on anyone. But I do wish that everyone would have the same smooth, calm, kind, efficient experience with the medical system that I had, when the unexpected happens.

I actually had a delightful, cozy, pain-free Christmas. Between the stabilized bones and the nerve blocks, I was able to venture out for a quiet Christmas Eve dinner at a friend’s house. The next morning, Won and I put on our Christmas jammies, and spent Christmas Day in front of the fire place, listening to music from Middle Earth and playing video games on our Steamdecks. The nerve blocks started to wear off by Boxing Day.

It feels like a vice that tightens without mercy around my lower right leg. A vice with spikes. With the leg elevated, the pain is at a 1-2 out of 10. The minute I sit up, or heaven forbid stand up, the intensity goes to a 10/10. I have never experienced childbirth or a kidney stone (the other 2 reputedly most painful human experiences), and it took until age 43 to break a bone. I have no right to whine. The opioids don’t really touch the pain. It does knock me into the blissful oblivion of sleep, and for that, I’m grateful.

Post-operative day 6 today. There is now a little nest on the couch where I spend my days. I’ve been wearing the same pair of Won’s gym shorts, because nothing else will fit over the ginormous cast on my foot. I try to minimize trips to the bathroom. Each trip involves involuntary tears, creative new ways to swear, and desperate petitions to the blessed realm. I’ve read seemingly all of the Internet, and solved countless shrines in Zelda Breath of the Wild. Enforced rest, and lessons in stillness and slowness. I wish it didn’t take a broken ankle to appreciate what I once took for granted. I marvel at being able to take a spontaneous walk around the park, to stand in the kitchen to prep the mirepoix for stew, to pop into the home gym for a workout, to navigate the step up into the shower. I feel a tremendous guilt when I can’t get up to help Won, as he cleans and cooks and tidies. The trash needs taking out, the Christmas decorations need taking down; and I’m helpless on the couch. This isn’t how I envisioned my sabbatical to be, nor how I thought 2025 would start. Everything I got for Christmas was for skiing, cooking, or my new workout regimen. The workout clothes still have tags on them, and RIP my Mission Ridge ski pass this year. Even the hand-crafted soy sauce bottle and new Le Creuset baking pan will remain unopened for a while. We have canceled the cycling tour to Chile that was planned for February.

I know this is not forever. I know I will heal. It may take 6 months, a year, to be back at what I was doing the morning before the black ice slip. The trick is to appreciate the current moment, and to keep a good perspective. Every successful shower, and small things like a daily bowel movement while on opioid pain medications, are worth celebrating.

Luck is a matter of perspective. One day at a time.

December 29, 2024