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January, 2007
The Spiral Fracture
By Tobias English
Dude, that’s pretty gnarly, getting mauled by an eighty-pound 'humpy' tortoise, but have you ever broken your femur? Well, I have, and it sucks in the most humbling way, especially if you've been grinding an axe against allopathic medicine like I had been for years ... since I found out the real details of my mother’s death: had everything to do with an anesthesiology screw-up, and not her operable lung issue ... that's another story.
I was skateboarding at the teen-center in Brattleboro, VT about 6 years ago. I was 33 then, but I guess they let me skate there because I didn't look too strung out on drugs ... and the fact that I’ve looked 19 ever since I was 19. I started rocking back and forth on the 6-foot half-pipe - no problem - except that I did not pre-stretch (as was my custom) and I had some stuff on my mind. Girls, probably. Only a couple of grommets (youngsters) rolled around the converted warehouse, so I wasn't sharing the pipe, or having to stop for anyone else's benefit. Now, board-slides are a pretty basic trick, but as I did one of them absent-mindedly, my front foot slipped off. Then, so did my back foot, which, had the ramp been as dusty as it typically was, would have slid down the near-vertical top of the ramp. No way. Maybe someone accidentally cleaned it. My foot stuck, as my body went behind/below it. Up comes my left (rear) foot toward my face and..."cr-rack"...there goes my femur in a spiraling splinterage that I actually heard. Before I came to a stop at the bottom, I had several thoughts: "wow. This is bad.” “But that was one big 'crack' and not a bunch of little knee-joint-connections, so, it's not my knee” “Huh....” “Wow, this hurts!" All before stopping at the bottom, where I proceeded to moan and, well, cry.
One of the grommets noticed that I wasn't moving and said "are you alright?" I looked at my leg, which now appeared to have two knee joints, and said "No. I’m broke-off. Go get someone!"
Terry, the lesbian director of the Teen-Center appeared shortly, then called the ambulance when she saw my bendy thigh. Now, I’d been studying Chinese medicine for a few years and had been told that a great first aid point for someone in shock is Kidney 1, beneath the ball of the foot, so when Terry asked me if there was anything she could do, I said "yeah...hold the points on the balls of my feet", which she did, and lo and behold, within 30 seconds, I had stopped shaking and whimpering and began breathing in a “pain-acceptance” type of way, the pain becoming considerably less panic-laced.
When the ambulance-dudes put some traction on my leg...well....THAT HURT!! And then, while being transferred from a gurney to the x-ray table...well, the only way to describe THAT pain involves many colorful 3,4,5,6 and 7-letter words. For now, let's translate it as: "holyCRAP!" An 8-letter word. Only after a large battery of the x-rays, which revealed a very splintered and not-at-all-connected spiral 'fracture', did the heavens open up to me in the form of DRUGS. Yea for drugs (in moments like these). While good and high, I was given a tough choice. Did I want an exterior brace, attached to both ends of my femur bone with BOLTS, or did I want a rod IN the bone, also attached at each end with bolts. The young intern described the options carefully and mentioned the hassle of the exterior brace. My clothing would have to be … customized. Something about his delivery nudged me to opt for the interior rod, which, though I was totally knocked out for the operation (9:00 am the next day) wound up coming out a year later. The worst part has yet to be described.
About 3 months after the first operation, which involved arthroscopic (mini-camera) techniques, I could crutch around and even ride my bicycle...I was sorely pained by what seemed to be my greater trochanter muscle rubbing on the bolt that held the top of the rod to the top of my femur. Could something be done about this? I asked the classically bespectacled physician. "Yeah, we can take out that top screw". Uh, huh. To avoid paying for a hospital room, I agreed to have them removed it in their office. Yes, two doctors took turns wrenching on that screw, which they had to go under the muscle for.....and I was FULLY AWAKE and with a minor shot of Novocain, which killed no pain at all. These guys were grunting as they pushed in with an Allen-head wrench, to unscrew the FOUR INCH screw, which had already fused with the marrow quite nicely. Yes there was gnashing of teeth and some crying and even a few more of the cuss-words. My left butt-cheek was extra-flabby for a year, but never again will I sweepingly indict the allopathic way. Without those little cameras and the special training of skilled surgeons, I’d have hung-out in 'traction' for 4 months or so. So get the external bone-brace, if you have the option. I was back on the skateboard in 6 months, and studying Holographic Repatterning around that time, too, cuz it helped me heal ALOT faster. Blah blah blah...lots of details were omitted to protect your attention-spans. Keep skating.
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