Chewymom

When you’re a kid, the image of “busting your butt” is just nothing short of hilarious! It conjures up mental images of a Laurel-and-Hardy-esque slip on a banana peel with a touch of Captain Underpants mixed in. Just the opportunity to use potty humor is enough for any kid. When you’re not a kid, however, and you truly do “bust your butt,” turns out it isn’t funny at all.

Last night my DH fell and busted his butt. It seemed pretty darned funny at first. He had just installed a hammock swing–he’d had a great idea on how to do it, too! Once it was up, he decided to test it out, so he sat in it, got all comfy, swung back and forth, and SNAP, the eyebolt holding the swing broke! DH landed on the ground right on his fanny. The neighbors watching over the fence and our kids reacted in surprise, then in laughter and jabs once DH got up and said, “I’m alright,” and hobbled into the house.

DH, realizing it was more than just a little bruise, decided it would be best to hobble on up the stairs and get in our extremely comfy bed and call me to request pain meds. I was at Lowe’s buying plants to beautify the front of the house a bit before our open house on Sunday, in hopes it will sell quicker. Once home, I managed to find some pain meds left over from DS12’s broken collarbone. I took one up to him, and then I started getting DD4 ready for bed, cleaning the kitchen, and doing my usual evening chores. Once DD4 was settled, just one room away, I went into my bedroom to find DH sitting on the floor beside the bed. He had needed to use the restroom, gotten up, and then not been able to bear weight. He finally managed to stand again and tried to make his way to the bathroom, but he simply could not bear weight on his left leg without excruciating pain. Add to that the fact that his back muscles kept spasming, and he was a mess. I convinced him to get back in the bed and call his doctor, who also happens to be a personal friend, meaning we have the benefit of being able to call him at home in an emergency.

DH’s doctor/friend said he needed to go to the hospital. From the description, he feared a compression fracture. The only way to get to the hospital, since DH could not walk, and there was NO WAY I was going to try to get him down the stairs, was to call an ambulance. And the only way to get an ambulance is to call 911. So DH did that, but he requested no sirens! No sense alarming the whole neighborhood at 9:30 at night!

The ambulance arrived, and as soon as they realized that DH was upstairs, they knew they had to call for a fire truck to get the extra men to help get him down. They put him on a backboard and waited. Up drove the firetruck, and a total of seven men and one woman either carried or hollered instructions as they twisted and maneuvered the hallway, stairway, and got DH out the door and into the ambulance.

I hopped into DH’s car and headed to the hospital, beating them there. Once settled in, well as much as anyone can “settle” in the ER, DH got an IV and was taken for an x-ray, which thankfully showed no compression fracture. I left to come home and tend to the kids, because of course another minor disaster was brewing. More on that later.

This morning, DD4 and I headed over to the hospital to check on DH. He was fine. More than fine, in fact, thanks to the pain medications. He was either sound asleep or full of nonsense, although he did manage the presence of mind to eat a few slices of cold bacon from his hospital breakfast tray. Nothing like a little highly processed, extremely high-fat pig meat to bring back good health to the sick! After DD4 and I sat and watched DH sleep in a dark room for a bit, and after the blowing-up-the-latex-glove-like-a-chicken-shaped-balloon trick lost its novelty, we decided to head back home. DH is blissfully sleeping away, waiting for his MRI which will tell us for sure if the butt is truly broken or merely badly bruised.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 10:50 am and is filed under This and That. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.