A Broken Girl in Utah

In order to fully explain the story behind this post, I need to talk about something I never talk about. Relationships. I have had some good ones in the past year and a half and I’ve had my share of horrible ones…including bad first dates. And I never once posted about any of these occurrences. Partly to protect the parties involved, but mostly because I didn’t want to explain to everyone why I was single, or what happened to that guy that I mentioned. I just didn’t need that. However, in order to explain the title of this post, I’m going to have to break that rule. I don’t even want to use the guy’s name (mostly because he doesn't even know he is the subject of this post)…but I need to, because I’m not going to keep referring to him as that guy that came to see me. So, I’ll begin.

The circumstances under which I met Zach, or why we started talking at all are completely irrelevant to this posting…so I’ll skip it. If you want to know, inquire. If not, it may possibly become the topic of a future blog…if I feel it relevant. Basically, all you need to know to understand this story is that I have spent a small amount of time with him and he is coming to visit Utah…well me I guess really, but I live in Utah…so he is visiting Utah. I’m thinking there is hopefully going to be a connection with him or something, so I’m going to do my best to impress! I had cleaned the entire apartment, planned a list of activities and I was ready to go!

Friday we had decided to go skiing/boarding. I was extremely excited about the prospect because any time I can hit the slopes is awesome…and doing it with a friend…even better. Well, the 3rd run of the day (about 20 minutes in) I tell him that he should ski ahead of me. I was totally paranoid about him getting hurt while he was in Utah because he had some training to go to in 2 weeks and he had to be in good physical condition to go. I kept telling him to take things at a slow pace and that I would be behind him if he fell. Well about 100 yards down that run, I went to rock back on my toe edge and I lost it. I reached back with my right arm and I totally bit it. Hard. My head hit the snow pretty hard, my goggles flew off and I just remember feeling pain. I collected my goggles, removed my gloves (stupid in hindsight), and just anticipated shaking it off. I went to push off with my arms when I realized that I could no longer move my right arm. My brain was telling it to move…but it wasn’t budging. I then took my left hand and placed it on my right elbow and immediately knew what the problem was. The point of my elbow was about 2 inches to the south of where it should be. I knew right then that there was no shaking off that injury. So I sat there and contemplated throwing up in the snow…that’s how much pain I was in. Then I realized that I couldn’t puke because just as I did, Zach would probably find me…and that’s no way to impress someone. I mean honestly, who am I? Stan from South Park? So I tried to find my center and breathe calmly. I knew that someone would come down that run, and more importantly I knew that Zach would find me eventually….however, I also knew that it would take awhile for him to do so, since he didn’t even know I was hurt. So I removed my board and waited.

Finally some skiers came flying down the hill. And they were moving. And they never stopped. Finally I grabbed the attention of a fellow snowboarder and told him to get ski patrol. (Meanwhile, Zach told me that when he realized I was gone, he waited for me for quite awhile on the trail, tried shouting for me, then realized that he should ski to the bottom and wait there. As the skiers came down they told him I was fine and I was sitting down. Then the snowboarder came down and had them radio for ski patrol saying that there was a girl that was badly hurt and he didn’t know what it was…but she couldn’t get up.) Meanwhile, I’m sitting on the hill shaking so hard I couldn’t stop. I think this was partly shock and partly cold. I was in windpants and under armor bottoms and my jacket was half unzipped because it was warm out. Unfortunately I landed in the shade and I couldn’t zip my jacket up with my left hand. I also couldn’t get my glove back on the right hand…so I was worried about frostbite. I was trying not to throw up and then practically hyperventilating so then I was trying not to pass out. After about 25 minutes ski patrol showed up. He immediately put his jacket around me and took my pulse. Then he radioed for a toboggan and put a sling on me. The toboggan was attached to a snowmobile and I had to lie almost completely flat while they strapped me in. The paramedics had decided that they were going to put oxygen on me because I was feeling very dizzy. It was as they were inserting the nose tube on me that Zach showed up. He looked all worried and said, “Oh my god, are you ok?” I just looked at him and said, “Nope, I’m going to die.” Then I cracked a smile. He asked if they had given me any pain killers yet. I told him no, and then he asked how I was still smiling. What he didn’t know was that I was trying so hard not to look like a big whiner. So they finished putting tying me in and the snowmobile took off for the first aid station. That was the longest snowmobile ride of my life. The paramedic said it would take 5 minutes, it felt like 5 hours. My arm wasn’t hurting as much as I anticipated, but the snow was flying in my face and I was concerned that perhaps my face would freeze in the position it was in. They dropped me off at ski patrol and walked me inside. Once inside I was informed that if I wanted to keep my jacket, I was going to have to remove it there. Apparently, if I went to the hospital with a jacket on, they were going to cut it off. So we carefully removed the jacket. However, the under armor shirt I was wearing was not going to be as lucky. I wasn’t so mad about the fact that they were going to cut the under armor, I was mad that I would have to wear a stupid hospital smock home. Honestly, those things don’t cover anything and I was not wearing my best sports bra that day. So Zach finally got to the ski lodge, pulled the car around and we were off to the emergency room.

I felt every bump and turn in the road all the way from the top of mountain down to the emergency room. I was trying so hard to be tough but all I wanted to do was to puke or pass out…maybe both. Plus someone else was driving my car, and no one drives my car, so I was having all sorts of control anxiety as well. I tried to keep things light by apologizing profusely for ruining the day and how I felt so terrible. Zach didn’t seem to mind and he even made a comment about what a good story this was going to be after the fact. After what felt like 3 years and 345,586 bumps in the road we made it to McKay Dee Hospital. Zach was helping me carefully take off the seatbelt…but he’s kind of ADD. I multi-task. When you put an ADDer with a multi-tasker bad things will happen. As the seatbelt is almost half off, I remind him to grab my purse in the back so I can get my insurance card. Which causes him to reach in the back and forget about the seatbelt, which hit my fingers, which made me scream loudly, “F*ck!” Then I immediately started apologizing profusely for yelling and swearing at him. What a way to impress.

So I get into the hospital and check in and tried to sit down, but I hit my fingers on the chair which caused me to say very loudly, “Shhhhhiiiiiiit.” This very condescending Mormon lady then looks at me with her 12 year old son sitting next to her and said, “ouch?” And I wanted to get up right then and dislocate her elbow and see what she said then. I was quickly moved into a room after that.

In the room there was a whole lot of waiting. I got taken out for X-rays and they were excruciating. And the sweet Mormon technician who looked like she was 12, but married, kept trying to get me to move my arm in different angles. I just wanted to yell at her and tell her that it was broken, can’t you see where the point of my elbow is?, that’s not normal…and no I can’t kneel on the floor…I can’t even get my legs to stop shaking. Then it was back to the room for more waiting. During this time they gave me 2 shots of morphine and I must say I am not impressed. After 2 shots of morphine I still felt every little bit of pain, there was not even an edge taken off and I didn’t even act silly. Finally, the doctor came back in and informed me that there were 3 snowboarders today who dislocated various joints and that one doctor was going to come in and much like an assembly line, pop in each one. The catch was that I had to be sedated. I was scared by that, and I don’t know why. But it was really the only option because I definitely did not to be awake when they popped that back in. When the doctor came in I looked at him incredulously and said, “You’re the doctor?” Yeah, he was totally in jeans and a flannel and looked more like a vet than a human doctor. He took it good naturedly enough and we were in business. They gave me the sedation and the rest I know only because I was informed when I woke up. Apparently after they had started the sedation, they started asking me questions. I kept saying, “I can see you, I can see nurses and doctors, I can see you.” So they kept giving me more drugs. Well then I think I passed out, like completely. The doctor then went about setting my elbow in place and taking x-rays to make sure it was in the right spot. They worked the arm a little bit and popped it right back in. It was at this point that my eyes flew open, I sat up in bed and had a few choice expressions. Then I apparently passed back out again, my pulse dropped below 50 (couldn’t tell exactly because 50 was as low as it goes) and my oxygen dropped below 72. The nurses then tried to wake me up and kept telling me to take deep breaths. One nurse said, “Shannon, you need to wake up now.” And I told her, “No, I’m having a dream. She then asked, “What’s your dream?”. And I told her, “That’s privileged information.” Even under sedation I don’t give up secrets! The next thing I remember is some nurse telling me that I needed to take a deep breath right now. I did and then looked to my left. Zach was still sitting there but he looked a bit worried. I asked if my elbow grossed him out…apparently it didn’t. So that was good.

So the rest of the weekend was spent doing a whole lot of nothing and getting waited on, which was pretty nice. On Monday I had to drive Zach to the airport. I was so worried about how I had ruined the weekend, but I think we are only just beginning...so it wasn't all bad. Plus I think he liked being the "knight in shining armor." (Author's side note: things went really well...can't wait to see him soon.)

On Tuesday I got my splint off. Below are pictures are of my elbow. (The following images are graphic and not for the weak stomached).