The job was renovating a church house, and a nasty job it was. Dusty, dirty, itchy and not a straight line or square corner on the whole building. The studs were spaced anywhere between a foot and four feet on center and no two were the same. They were hardwood of some sort that resisted the insertion of a drywall screw like an Amishman resists change. Every piece of drywall was a work of art. Modern art, that is, with all its bizarre angles.
Well Peter and I were installing one such work of art above a door way and the piece was unfortunately still not in complete conformity with the shape required by the church in question. I was standing on a stepladder. Now it has always been my belief that you can’t hurt yourself falling from a five foot stepladder and I stepped up a bit higher to give the erring piece of drywall a solid crack in an effort to get it to fit in with the crowd. It rebelled, jumped off the wall, hit my stepladder and sent it cavorting in the opposite direction from me. I fell over backwards and hit the floor, HARD! My left arm managed to get twisted around behind and under me and I landed on top of it.
I got up and thought for a second that I had left my arm on the floor but then realized that I hadn’t because it was very much still a part of me and was screaming in pain like a drunk tom cat in a brawl. The rest of the fellows gathered round looking very concerned. We assessed the damages and I managed to convince myself that the shoulder was dislocated. My thought process was that you can’t break a bone falling from a five foot stepladder, but we decided to go to a local clinic and take an X-ray, just in case……
As luck would have it the first clinic didn’t have anyone that knew how to run the machine. Why you would have a machine with no one to run it is beyond me. And besides, how hard is it. I mean I could do it in my sleep after all the X-rays I’ve taken lately. Anyway, next stop took the X-ray for us. I was pacing around the room behind the nurse like an elephant on heroine, waiting for the results to show up one her computer screen, ( it took half of forever…) when it did show up I took one look and said,”Shucks!! I don’t even need a doctor to tell me that’s broke.” The bone was broken clean off right below the ball in the shoulder. So much for my faith in stepladders.
So we headed for the Bloomington hospital where they took some more X-rays, gave me a sling, an appointment for the next day and a prescription for pain medication and sent me home.
I barely made it through the night and was at the end of my string, or so I thought. The pain was intense and the pain medication made me so dead stupid I couldn’t get my ass into the recliner from a foot away. Anyway, I headed for the hospital in the morning full of hope. They were going to do whatever it took to fix this once and for all. Sure I would still have pain but the waiting was over.
That’s the way my Amish brain is programmed. Do what it takes. Get it done. Now.
Not so with the health care system.
They did a CAT scan and sent me home with another appointment with a doctor to make an appointment to do surgery. I broke my arm on Thursday. This was now Friday. The appointment to make an appointment was on Monday. Probable surgery on Tuesday. Two days short of a whole blink’in week!! Oh, and they gave me another everlasting prescription to the blessed oblivion found in utter stupidity.
I didn’t say anything, but if the nurse could have heard my thoughts she’d have turned a horrible hue of green and red.
I was raised Amish. Amish aren’t supposed to swear and I generally avoid it at all costs but I do have a very diverse list of expletives to choose from in special occasions.
I must confess that the combination of painkiller wearing off, frustration and pain turned into one of those special occasions. I’ve apologized to God and my wife, fortunately they were both very understanding.
To make a long story short I now sit in the recliner with my arm in a sling and a homemade splint fabricated of gauze wrap and several of the children’s blocks. The nurse was so taken up with prescriptions she never thought about something so low tech as a splint. I can’t lie down because my arm hurts in that position and I can’t sit because my rump hit the floor pretty hard too. Life consists of an unending search for the the least uncomfortable position.
Having said all I did about the health care system I will say I appreciate them for all that they do. I’d be in a bad way if they didn’t exist. It just seems to me that the humanity and common sense have been completely washed out of the system. That, and you have to either be dying, or exceptionally good at acting like you are in order to get any kind of attention.
I am, unfortunately, only good at the opposite.
Oh and worst of all, my friends have taken to sympathizing with my jokes instead of laughing at them. And that….. is unpardonable.