When the nurse came by to take my vitals this morning, she asked me how my sitting up was going. I report to her that I can now get the angle of the bed to a little over 25 degrees consistently at meals for about 20 minutes.
“You know, the goal is 45 degrees,” she responds a little too brightly.
This earns her a mild glower. “Yes, I know,” I say. “I’m aiming to hit 30 degrees next week.“
I don’t blame her. With so many patients to care for, all she can do is track and report the facts of my recovery.
That said, I know my body. I’ve recovered from around forty bone fractures throughout my life and, even if this recovery continues to be very slow, I’m extremely encouraged by the changes I’m now seeing in my pain level, strength and mobility.
Allow me to paint a word picture of what recovery has looked like over the past three months.
The Crash Phase
We think that my femur fully fractured around March 20th after I had been unknowingly moving around on the cracked bone for a couple weeks. This set in motion a cascade of events that Stefan beautifully chronicled from his perspective in a recent Tilted Windmills post, “A grief, observed”.
From my perspective, my experience narrowed to a single dimension—pain. Just mind-blowing levels of pain.
The thigh bone is one of the most robust in the body making it one of the most painful bones to break. The way the body attempts to protect itself is to clench all the muscles around the bone as tightly as it can to form a kind of flesh cast while it heals. Unfortunately, this tightening of the muscles causes the raw ends of the bone to grind against each other causing even more excruciating pain.
Once I was admitted to the hospital, the priority was to bring the pain down to something I could tolerate. I was on a laundry list of medications that included three different forms of hydromorphone (short-acting, long-acting and injection), Tylenol and fentanyl. The staff were understandably cautious about the dosage given my diminutive size and it took a few days to increase my painkillers enough to be effective.
As the fracture was deemed too high on the bone to cast effectively, I was simply told to move and be moved as little as possible while it healed. The rest of my body still had needs and maintaining those had their challenges.
Feeding: I could angle the head of the bed up only slightly—probably less than 15 degrees—and the staff was extremely worried I would choke on my food while trying to eat nearly flat on my back. I made a point of choosing items off the hospital menu that were soft or could be spoon-fed to me in small bites.
Cleaning: The development of skin sores was a big risk while I was lying nearly immobile in the hospital bed. The staff would wipe me down in bed as best they could, but touching anywhere in the area around my broken leg or rolling me to one side or the other was incredibly painful. The hair on the back of my head became quite matted and we couldn’t even change out my pillowcase during the first three weeks.
Toileting: One of the first things they did when I was admitted was put in a catheter, which was a huge relief since it meant I could urinate freely without needing to be moved. My bowel movements, however, became the bane of my existence because they were the one unavoidable activity that I had to be moved for each day.
Every time I had one in my adult diaper, the staff would give me additional pain medications for the cleanup—a dose of fentanyl and an additional injection of hydromorphone. It would then require three people to roll me up on my “good” right side to remove the diaper, clean me up and put the new diaper on. One person—typically Stefan—would be solely responsible for holding my broken leg sandwiched between two pillows. Another staff member would support me as I held on to the bed rail while the third person would do the actual cleaning.
In most of these early sessions, I would alternate between wordlessly screaming and providing rapid-fire directions to the staff to try to mitigate the off-the-charts pain. The staff wasn’t sure what to make of my forceful advocacy back then, so my directions weren’t always listened to.
Stefan and I used every trick in our collective mental health arsenal to try and mitigate these experiences. While I was waiting for the painkillers to kick in, he would use exercises involving focused attention and visualization to try to lessen my anxiety ahead of the side roll. Sometimes I used “tender” energy and called forth a peaceful memory from our kayaking trips to Alice Lake. Other times I used my Wonder Woman figure to help me tap into my “fierce” energy. I would hold her before the side roll and then place her where I could see her during the roll itself to try and keep that energy in my mind.
Sometimes it worked, but sometimes all I could do was endure… until the next round when the cycle would begin all over again.
The Waiting Phase
By around mid-April, a gluey substance had started to form at the ends of the broken bone. This keeps the bone from grinding painfully and also prevents the fracture from shifting—or, in my case, further shifting.
The transition into this new phase of healing came almost imperceptibly at first. All of the activities looked the same, but the pain involved steadily became a little less. I no longer had to tolerate a base level of pain and swat it down with extra meds when it climbed too high. Instead, the goal was to achieve a measure of comfort between activities.
Feeding: I was able to angle the head of the bed to 15 degrees and sometimes 20 degrees if I pushed it. Stefan entertained me by bringing me food from the outside world and we even treated ourselves to a Thai takeout feast to mourn the closing of our favourite Thai restaurant back in Vancouver.
Cleaning: Slowly and steadily my bed baths became easier. The staff could lightly touch the leg and I could roll my upper body to allow them to clean my upper back. My hair was “washed” by covering my head in a shower cap filled with warm conditioner goo. The matted hair on the back of my head was eventually deemed unsalvageable and a kind-hearted healthcare aid helped me cut off the chunk one night. As a black woman, she said she appreciated my plight after enduring a childhood where so many folks didn’t understand how to properly care for her hair. I was sad to lose such a large piece; however, I reasoned it would probably have grown back by the time I was out of hospital.
Toileting: The side rolls to clean up my bowel movements were still a trial, but one that now involved more gritted teeth and less screaming. The whole process better resembled a military operation that required two staff members, the precise timing of the painkillers and me calling out orders during the process. After weeks in their care, the staff were now more inclined to trust my directions and this, in turn, made me feel less helpless and anxious about the process.
Unfortunately, the catheter started to create some drama. Long-term catheter use invariably causes infections with painful bladder contractions. I ended up with two different UTIs during this period that were treated with antibiotics. As a bonus, I learned I was allergic to one of the antibiotics, which gave me a full-body rash for a couple days.
So that was… fun.
Mostly as the name implies, this period involved a lot of marking time.
I did a few limited physio exercises. I streamed movies or TV shows. I listened to numerous audiobooks and podcasts. I scrolled social media, played video games or finger-painted using the Freeform app on my phone.
I waited as my body continued to work diligently on healing the bone.
The Inflection Point
In my experience, there comes a time in every fracture when the recovery starts to noticeably pick up steam and this is the phase I’m in right now.
I felt the shift begin around mid-May when the catheter was removed. Not only was I ecstatic because the catheter was giving me such grief by that point, but I knew the fact that I could manage without it was a massive milestone.
Every day I get a little bit stronger and require less medication to manage my pain. While I still can’t move or put weight on my broken left leg, I have become adept at repositioning my body by pushing my bum up using only my right leg. Also, tasks that previously required an avalanche of extra painkillers and multiple staff members can now be done without additional pain meds as I crack jokes with a single helper.
While I have never been truly idle these past couple months, I have been spending less time on mindless distractions and more time working on the exhibit in earnest. As of this writing, I have now finished all forty-four planned pieces for the exhibit—28 finished paintings, 5 unfinished paintings and 11 digital mockups. Stefan was at the studio this past weekend working on boxing up all the art to take to my painting mentor for varnishing and final exhibit preparation.
I have also finished digitally collaging all the slides for the “Love & Disability” installation. This part of the exhibit was created in collaboration with couples from all over the world so that they could also share their experiences. The photos and responses were collected back in the spring of 2023 and it was incredibly moving working on them now from my hospital bed as I reflected on the journey that Stefan and I have been on these past few months.
The Future
Despite all this progress, I still don’t know when I will be discharged from the hospital. Over the past three months, I have found myself shifting from frustration to grief and finally into a certain level of grudging acceptance.
Like all my past fractures, I need to trust my body and know that my recovery will take as long as it takes.
It will be measured in the little victories—the number of reps of a physio exercise or the amount of time I spend in my new custom splint designed to protect my healing leg.
And, of course, in the degrees on the hospital bed.
At lunch today, I got the head of the bed up to 30 degrees—for three whole minutes!
If you’d like to see my art in person, come to see “The Extraordinary, Ordinary Nature of Interabled Love” between July 30th and August 24th at cSPACE Marda Loop in Calgary. Also, don’t forget to RSVP for free for the August 1st opening reception.
Always such a powerful read. It is so interesting to get an almost visceral experience of your healing process. Thank you for letting us in to what it is like. The phases and the eventual acceptance stay with me and also you knowing that your body had turned a corner and you are in a new phase of recovery. Best wishes with those angles! Best wishes with your exhibit. I hope it brings new phases of joy discovery and connection! Wishing you continued progress!
Thank you for sharing this with us and letting us see into your day to day, Athena. This sounds really, really tough!! Wonder Woman, lake days, and being heard - these are powerful, Athena. I celebrate your 20 degrees head lift with you. 💪Every win matters. Sending love your way.