Sunday morning I got up, and headed to Echo Reservoir to meet up with my cousin, Troy for a fun-filled day of boating. We got out on the lake, took turns pulling each other behind the boat for a couple hours and then headed to the dock to pick up Ro, Derek and Justin. We sat out on the lake and talked for a bit and decided someone should get in the water. We were talking about jumping the wake, and I thought I'd be a little daring and try it. (I had been getting pretty good wakeboarding this season and thought it was time to step up my game.) I got up, went in and out of the wake a few times and decided to "go big or go home".... turns out the 3rd option in that statement is "go to the hospital."
The jumping the wake part was great, the landing, not so much. I caught the front edge of my board on my landing and hit the water... HARD. Any of you that have been with me around water know that I plug my nose, ALWAYS. Well, when I hit the water I went face first. As soon as I hit, my right foot came out of my board and my board twisted behind me. I immediately felt a weird numbness/pain in my leg. I came up gasping for breath, my board was back behind me and I couldn't move my leg. My cousin came around in the boat and everyone starting panicking and asking if I was ok. Apparently I had blood all over my face - My nose was bleeding and I had a gash on my face from my fingernail when I plugged me nose. I told them I couldn't move my leg and that I couldn't get my board off. They kept asking if I needed help and after telling them yes (what felt like a million times) Derek jumped in the water, got my board off, and got me to the boat. Ro pulled me onto the swim deck of the boat by my life jacket and then everyone lifted me onto the back of the boat. My leg was up near my chest and I couldn't move it... at all. Any movement at all put me through the roof. The closer I could keep it to my chest, the less pressure/pain I had but it was still excruciating. Everyone kept asking if I knew what was wrong and I said I didn't know but that it felt like my leg was in my butt. (I've never broken a bone, never been to the hospital, so I wasn't sure what was going on.) They got me to the dock and the EMT at the lake came out to the boat. He didn't want to move me from the boat to a car for a couple reasons. He was worried I may have back/neck issues and with as much pain as I was in, he didn't want me going into shock. So they called the ambulance.
*Side story - Right after this happened, my dad said he had this feeling to call to see if everything was ok. I told Ro to call my parents and when she grabbed my phone, my dad called. They were still in Heber so they met the ambulance in Park City and followed it to the hospital.
I swear it took FOREVER for the ambulance to get there. Once they did, they put my on a backboard and carried me from the boat to the ambulance - hands down the WORST pain I have ever been in. Once they got me in the ambulance, they gave me and IV and started giving me morphine. A little while later I asked if they could give me anything for the pain yet and they said that they had already given me almost the maximum dose they were allowed to in the ambulance... great. Morphine didn't do anything but make me loopy.
Little blurry, but Ro made sure to document my ambulance ride. (I asked her to ride with me, I was scared to say the least)They took me to the University of Utah hospital and got me into a room in the ER. They were pretty sure that I had disclocated my hip, but needed to take Xrays to be sure and needed to see if anything was broken as well. They couldn't take Xrays until I got my hips flat on the table (are you freaking kidding me!!??!) Needless to say, after a LOT of dilaudid(?) I was able to get my hips flat enough that they took me to the Xray room. I had to have someone holding up my leg by my ankle at all times, if not the pain was so bad all I could do was scream. They let me mom come into the Xray room with me, the second the Xray went through, we heard the technician say, "yep, it's out." They took me back to my room and we waited for the Dr's to look at the Xrays. My nurse, Ed, who by the way was AWESOME, came in and said "Ummm, the Dr's are in looking at your Xrays trying to figure out how you dislocated your hip with what you were doing. They usually only see this in old people or high impact car accidents."- wonderful. The Dr. finally came in and said that I had a "Posterior Dislocation of my hip,"- basically they said my femur was completely out and behind my pelvis. They did say that luckily I didn't break or crack any bones- which was highly unlikely - said that usually they see shattered pelvis' or cracked femurs when they have this sort of injury. Lucky me, I guess??? They put me under a conscious sedation right there in the room I was in and popped it back in (just like you'd pop back in a dislocated finger I guess). The Dr. said after it took awhile to get it back in, because the pain was so bad my muscles wouldn't relax enough to pop it back in.
Right before they popped it back in.... You can tell from the look on my face I'm in a bit of pain.
I'm not sure if this was right before or right after they popped it back in, but I was definitely drugged up. They put a neck brace on my because the Xrays showed something in my neck they were worried about, so as soon as my hip was back in place, they took me in for a CT scan. (Everything with that turned out fine)
Right after I woke up from getting my hip put back in, I was feelin' good... haha
My favorite nurse, Ed, putting on my leg brace.... had to wear that puppy for a couple weeks, and had to be on crutches.The Dr said I had a really high chance of popping it out again within the first few weeks so had to wear the brace to stabilize it and couldn't put any weight on it. I stayed with my parents for a few weeks because I couldn't drive or really do anything for that matter. I was miserable, I was in a lot of pain, I couldn't do anything on my own, and I had a few break downs because I was stuck on the couch and couldn't do a thing about it. I PROMISE, I will never take walking for granted again. My parents were great to take care of me and chauffeur me around, and my friends were great to come and visit, bring me jamba, red mango, flowers and dinner :)
I went to the Dr. a few weeks after for a follow up and the Dr I followed up with was in shock and how I managed to dislocate my hip how I did. Said the same thing the Dr said in the ER... only in old people or high impact car accidents. He said I had to have hit so hard and so perfect to do that. He said once it healed though the chances of me popping it out again were the same chances I had of doing it in the first place (pretty slim). He said I could wake board again if I wanted, snowboard, play softball, anything. He told me I didn't need physical therapy because the youngest he's seen in the clinic with that type of injury was at least twice my age, and as anxious as I was to get back into the swing of things, he didn't think I'd have any trouble bouncing back. So... the road to getting my old lady hip better was on full force. The doc said no more brace and to use my crutches to stabilize me until I could walk without too bad of a limp..... yeah, those damn crutches last a good half hour and I was done!
It's taken a while but I'm ALMOST back to feeling normal. It's been a little over 10 weeks since it happened, and even though I still have some pain it's feeling pretty good. My hip pops constantly, but so do the rest of the joints in my body so I think I just need to get used to it. I played softball the past 2 weekends and did great! (I had a pinch runner though... running is the only thing that my hip still can't handle). I hit a bit of a rough patch, but I'm doing MUCH better! :)
So THAT.... was my Labor Day Weekend adventure... good times. (I left out a few details, but this post ended up even longer than I had thought)
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