Friday, 14 May 2010
A Misstep in May
May is going to be a quiet month.
It began last Saturday, 8 May. After the Chanticleer tour on May 7th our busload of gardeners visited Meadowbrook Farm for a shopping stop. Not so strangely, I bought a couple of plants. Saturday was gray, with rain forecast. Figured I'd get my new purchases into the ground. Planted one. Pulled weeds. Garlic mustard is beyond full flower, it's edging over into seed production. I have, however, an answer for that. It's called weed-eating sheep.
As you can see here.
I've been feeding weeds to these sheep for so long that I've worn a path down the slope to their pasture. Started down the path, arms full of weeds. Slipped, my right foot folded inward, and there was a really, really disgusting crunching noise. Picked my leg up and the foot flops. Sheep complaining bitterly about delicious weeds laying on ground just outside the fence. Tough. Sit on my backside and hitch my way up the slope. Across the road. Along the road towards our driveway. Along came some neighbors in their van. Together with a passing jogger they hoisted me up, put me in the van, and drove to the top of our driveway to notify Paul that his wife needed to go to the emergency room NOW because she had a broken ankle.
Off to the hospital in thunder and lightening and buckets of rain. Various questions. Morphine. X-rays. News. I broke both the fibula and the tibia, which I believe is called a bimalleolar ankle fracture. It needs an open repair. That's where the orthopedist goes in and surgically puts everything back together the way it is supposed to be.
Who is the orthopedist on call? None other than Dr. Robert More of Hunterdon Orthopedic Institute. He'd repaired Paul's broken wrist a couple of years ago so it was very comfortable to see him and know I was in competent hands.
Into surgery early in the afternoon. Awoke in the recovery room a couple of hours later, to the pleasant news that all had gone so well that I could go home that evening. A small plate and a couple of large screws were now holding the pieces together again. Slept most of Sunday.
I must not put any weight on my right foot at a minimum until the end of May and probably longer. It is a very mindful life I'm leading as every action must first be thought out in sequence and then carefully be carried out. Getting into a chair. Even more fraught - getting out of a chair. No driving. No gardening.
My friend Marta came to visit on Thursday, with a box of the most delicious cookies from a bakery in Peapack. We got me out of the house and into her car and went for a ride to the bottom of my driveway. As I sat in the car giving directions where to find them, Marta dug some plants I had promised her. She even weeded. More garlic mustard. Which was fed to the sheep, very, very carefully.
A you can see in the x-ray taken at my follow-up office visit on Friday, 14 May Dr. More did a very nice, tidy job. The tibia, larger of the two bones in the lower leg, is snapped across. The fibula has an angled, somewhat lengthwise crack. You have to peer closely to even find the two breaks. It's called an accident because no one plans to have them. But how reassuring to know that when there's no "Use Caution When Feeding Sheep" sign and I take a tumble that there's someone like Dr. More to put me back together again.
Still, May is going to be a very quiet month.