Friday, April 8, 2016

Anne has an Accident (with a capital 'A')

After our first couple weeks back in Santa Cruz, we were starting to feel settled in and getting comfortable.  Then, suddenly, it all unwound on us in a hurry.

We had a rat in the kitchen.  Mice in the ceiling of the office.  I started working with the bookkeeper, so she can go on furlough this year.  It got hot.

A young family from the US was visiting Bolivia and we were their main contact.  Last Wednesday, I took a couple hours off of the bookkeeping to pick them up, get them some groceries, and bring them to campus.  Anne, Addi, and Lydia immediately set off with their kids to give them the Grand Tour while we helped them get their stuff into their room.

Then Anne started screaming.

Now, our girls have been trained that screaming is absolutely off limits except for two reasons:  you're hurt so bad you can't get help or a bad person is getting you.  

I ran out to the girls' favorite climbing tree, Kaylee right behind me, and found her laying on her back in the sand with a funky-looking shoulder, saying, "Daddy, I can't breathe."  Addi told me that Anne had fallen out of the tree, indicating a branch next to my head.  Kaylee called our coworker Judy, who is trained as a nurse.  We thought maybe her shoulder was dislocated from the way it looked, but Judy said we should go into town to our ER of choice.

So Judy bound up Anne's arm in a couple strips of Kaylee's cloth, we got her up into the Patrol, and she and I bumped and jolted our way, 5 miles into the city, to the best clinic in town.

Sweaty and sandy, lots of pain, taking vitals in the ER
Anne was in a lot of pain, but she was amazing.  Between the ride into town, all the preliminary checks, and the x-ray, she was well over an hour without any kind of pain medication before they got the IV into her.  Maybe it was the shock, but she never complained, other than "It hurts!"


The x-ray tech said, "Fractured."

The ER doc said, "Can you afford an MRI at $XXXX?"

I said, "Let's pray the insurance will cover it!"

MRI:  That "ball" is supposed to be on the end of the bone!
It turns out that "fractured" in Spanish can mean anything from a hairline to a major break -- one of the many new things I learned through this experience.  Another is that you get to choose your level of comfort from 3 different classes of room -- "normal," "special," and "VIP" -- each more expensive than the last, of course.

Surgery was scheduled for the following morning at 11:00.  Our coworker Karla (the bookkeeper) drove into town to bring us some necessities and ended up feeding Anne her supper while I took the car to a secure garage and fed myself.


So Anne and I spent the night in the hospital together for the first time since she was born. :)  

Surgery went as planned and praise God the doctors were happy with how her arm turned out.  They did end up putting a temporary pin in it, which I had to pay for separately (by private courier).  

I was concerned that Anne was going to come out of the anesthesia all alone, as I wasn't given access.  However, just as Anne was coming out of surgery, while the anesthesiologist was giving me his report, Kaylee and the girls showed up for a visit.  As soon as I introduced them, the anesthesiologist rushed Kaylee into the recovery room and Anne opened her eyes for the first time just as she walked in!  Another reason to praise God!

With one arm broken and an IV in the other, she needed LOTS of help!

We stayed one more night in the hospital and were released the following day.  Of course, we had to pay before she was allowed to leave, which caused a bit of a fuss when my debit card wouldn't work.  A coworker ended up bringing cash for us, so we could go home!  Anna, yet another coworker, stayed with Anne while I got it all worked out and went to get the car!



Now for a week, Anne has been learning to make do with "one hand."


We went back into town this afternoon for her second followup appointment and they took another x-ray of her shoulder.  The doc said it looks great!

Before (broken)                                       After (fixed)
We thank God for all of our teammates that helped us both in physical ways and through prayer.  We are thankful for those of you who prayed as well.  We are thankful for a good clinic to go too, and a good car to get us there in.  We are thankful that Anne is recovering well!

The branch she was sitting on when she fell

Now we need to fix the office ceiling, which has been pulled down to reveal a terrible lot of mousy nastiness and termites. . .

1 comment:

  1. what a great chronological story of how the events transpired...so thankful for you guys

    ReplyDelete