BEWARE - Some of these images are not for the faint of heart.
Where to begin? How about at the beginning. It was a Wednesday morning around 10 am. I was on the phone with a co-worker. Kendall called. I let it go to voicemail, but thought it was an unusual time for her to be calling. Then I get an SOS text and a second call. I told my co-worker that I should probably answer the call.
Kendall said, "I crashed on a Lime scooter." She takes them from her apartment to class in the business building most days. I asked if she was okay. She said she thought she had dislocated her foot. (hmmm?). I asked if things were in the same plane and if she could get up. She said, no and it looks very knarly. I told her that I would head that way, but could she call 911 and I could meet the paramedics there.
It turns out that as I was on my way there, the ambulance pulled in front of me. In the small world order of things, it was the same ambulance that was on its way to Kendall. We arrived at the same time. One of the paramedics came over to me, while the other one went over to Kendall.
The paramedic near me asked if I wanted them to assess her and then possibly I could transport her to urgent care. At that moment, the other paramedic looked over to us and said, "No. We will be transporting her and to the hospital emergency room." Uh Oh!
While waiting Kendall would naturally take a selfie.
This is not the best angle, but as you can see the ankle an foot are offset from one another. I should also mention that her left pant leg was doused in hot chocolate. You see, she had headphones on, a backpack AND a hot chocolate in the side pocket of her backpack. She thinks she hit the corner of the speed bump at a weird angle. She was up, then she was down. It was that fast.
Kendall has always been the happiest wounded or sick person. Kevin used to say it all the time. In this case, I think she had a bit of shock going on. Her body was shaking, but there were no tears. One of her 'regulars' is with campus security and came to give a hand and stay with her until the paramedics had arrived. I should note that Kendall said two cars swerved around her laying in the middle of the street until the third one stopped to help. Really people? We can do better!
The paramedics were amazing and did their best to keep Kendall comfortable and even stopped to pose for a picture.
I followed them to the ER. They pumped her full of pain medication to even keep the pain at a 7 or 8. Then they took a couple rounds of xrays.
She was otherwise okay, despite a bit of road rash.
An ER doctor came by and tried to pull her foot back into alignment to see if things might line up. Not so much. He then informed us that he would be admitting her, and she would be getting surgery that day or evening.
She broke both bones and tore two ligaments.
They were pretty good about getting her to a room and trying to keep her comfortable until surgery time.
Diego came by and we waited it out together. The PA came by to let us know what to expect. They would either be able to do an internal surgery and Kendall could go home in a few days OR they would do an external surgery and she would need to stay at the hospital for a couple of weeks until an internal surgery could be performed. The external surgery would fix a cage around her leg and keep things stationary until swelling went down.
When the surgeon came by, he was pretty sure we were looking at the external surgery. I did let him know that 'for the record' we really wanted the internal surgery. He said 'noted, but he would have to see how much swelling there was, as he did not want to increase the risk for infection.'
Well, fortunately, he was able to do the internal surgery. Kendall is now the proud owner of a rod and a few new screws that she gets to keep indefinitely.
After the surgery, it was a waiting game to see if they could get her pain under control. They found a recliner for me to rest in with her. The first one they found would not stay reclined. It just kept popping back up. We got a few good laughs out of it, until they found us a working one.
After a couple of days, Kendall was able to go home.
She is now resting in my bed. The pain has been pretty rough, but I think we have settled into a good routine. She reached out to the University and has been working with them to get her coursework done. The first few days, it was very difficult to focus with all of the medication, so they extended some deadlines. Basically, she gets to do nothing but lay for a couple of weeks. We have a 2 week follow up to determine next steps.
On a good note, Willow and Kendall have been bonding quite nicely.
