Mike Broke His Patella

I got a call last night from Mike around 2 am telling me that he was in an ambulance going to the hospital because he fell and thought he broke his knee. I wanted so badly to go to the hospital and be with him while he was being examined and everything but we didn't have the money to pay for parking so I had to stay home. He was very understanding about that and called me every time he had an update. Around 5 am he called me to come pick him up. 

He does not need surgery, apparently his patella shattered, but not enough that surgery was an option. His knee is all bandaged, he has a huge patellar brace over it and has crutches that he has to walk with. He is not supposed to put any weight on it at all. He's on Tramadol (sp?) and has to start physiotherapy as soon as possible. 

He's in good spirits so far, although right now he's sleeping. The recovery time is supposed to be 4-6 weeks, but the doctor said it might be much longer and that he might not be able to work, unless he can find a job where he'll be sitting for the majority of the day. That's not something that he can do, he's tried it and just goes crazy. Even though he's been out of full time work for quite some time, he has been able to find temporary work building stages, doing lighting and playing in bands. He's really upset that he might not be able to build stages and he's really concerned about not being able to play in bands. He plays the upright bass, so basically has to stand to play it. When he's healed up a bit more he's going to try sitting on a stool to play and see if he can do that. 

I would really appreciate any vibes towards his healing. If anyone else has gone through something similar, can you please let me know how things went? 

I don't have any experience or advice but want to say I'm sorry you are both going through so much right now. Hang on, things will get better, hope Mike has a speedy and full recovery! 

Ouch, poor Mike! I'm sending lots of "heal fast" his way.

for Mike. The Tramadol is a good choice for a pain-easer.  It will help without making him goofy.

He's awake now and cuddling with "his" dog. The cats have been in with him, laying down, both are avoiding his leg so it seems like they know something is up, which is good. Fynn, one of our dogs, is in there laying across Mike's stomach with his head on Mike's bad leg. He's refusing to move off the bed, but does come up to me for pets when I go in there. I haven't brought Sadie, our other dog, in the bedroom to see him yet because she tends to be a bit hyper and will probably jump right on it. So she's just cuddling with me on the couch right now. 

We have no idea how he's supposed to bathe himself yet. He has to call his physiotherapist tomorrow to set up his first appointment, so he'll ask then. 

He's supposed to be getting a cheque in the next few days, so when that comes in I'll go and get him some magazines and things to read, but so far he's content to be laying in bed watching tv shows. I'm going to download a few more seasons of different shows he likes and put them on some DVDs for him so that he's not watching the same thing over and over. When I left to go get him some things today he was watching The Simpsons, when I came back about an hour later he was watching the same episode again, lol.

Night update, in case anyone is interested. 

He's been up and moving around more. I took him with me to the grocery store. We were going to use the store wheelchair, but the lady that runs the smoke shop there (and controls the motorized carts and wheelchairs) let him take one of the carts. He had a blast scooting around in it, although I was sure he was going to hit someone, lol (he didn't). 

I got him to sit in the living room with me for a bit. We have a couch that has a chaise attached to it, so he was able to put his leg up which is more comfortable for him. We watched the season finales of Hell's Kitchen and Master Chef. Now he's playing around on the desktop computer and I'm about to go to bed. 

I'm exhausted. He's been napping on and off all day, I guess a side effect of the med he's on is drowsiness. I was going to have a nap but someone called just as I laid down on the couch so I ended up studying instead, which is probably a good thing, lol. I got about 5 hours of studying in, with about 12 pages of notes, between the two courses I'm taking. We need to figure out a better system for me getting him things though. He can't carry anything with the crutches so every 5 minutes I was up getting him things. Even though I'd ask him if he needed anything else when I brought him something, he'd forget something and I'd have to stop what I was doing and get up and get him whatever he needed. 

I have to work tomorrow, so he's going to be alone from 9-5. I have some hamburger patties in the fridge that he can easily get and I put a clean pan on the stove. The kitchen is small enough that he can stand in the middle and get the patties out, reach over and put them on the counter, then move over to the stove and put the patties into the pan. I put the buns right next to the stove as well. If for some reason he can't manage that, I'm going to leave a bag of chips and a box of poptarts beside the bed. He can easily get juice or water if he wants to, but just in case, I'm going to fill up a couple of water bottles and put them beside the bed as well. The air conditioner is pretty close to where the water bottles will be so they should stay cool. There's also a clip on a couple of them so he can clip it to his crutches if he wants to fill it with juice. I'm going to wake him up when I get up to see if he wants any breakfast. 

I have to call him at some point tomorrow morning too to remind him to call and make an appointment to start his physio. He's really not looking forward to that. Hopefully he can take his med before his appointment so that he's not in as much pain after. 

This is definitely going to be an interesting 4-6 weeks. 

Ouch!

Sending many healing vibes his way.

So much to update! I guess I'll start from where I left off...

Mike had his appointment with the physiotherapist, they took another xray and told him to start exercising his knee. They had him walking around for a few days without the crutches but with the brace, then with no brace or crutches and told him to just take things slowly, which he was. He was doing very, very well. 

Last night we had to go to a birthday party just down the street. We had been there for just over an hour, both of us had two beers... then he tripped and fell. Neither of us were drunk, but I wasn't sober enough that I was comfortable driving. Immediately he wanted to go to the hospital, his knee looked really bad through his jeans (couldn't actually see it at that point). A bunch of the people there thought that we should just go home and ice it, then go to the hospital in the morning. Thank god we didn't listen to them. I called a cab and we went straight to the hospital. We waited for about half an hour in the emergency room before they took him for an xray, then another half hour before we were taken back to a bed. We both managed to get about an hour and a half of sleep (him in the bed, me curled up really awkwardly in a very small chair). We were woken up when the elderly women on either side of us pooped themselves, that is NOT a smell that is pleasant to wake up to, lol. About half an hour later the doctor came in to see him, it was the same one that he had before. She confirmed that it was now completely broken and separated. Thankfully, when we had taken the cab to the hospital I had them stop at my place so I could grab my purse and his crutches. They gave him a new brace, a bit smaller than the last one so it actually fits properly. They also gave him a new pair of pyjama pants to wear home because they had to cut his off. He did very well, but now he's in a great deal of pain. He's shaking almost constantly from it, but doesn't want to take his pain medication unless he really needs it. He took two today, so he at least got some rest. I got about half an hour of sleep when we got home before I had to get up and go to work. I don't think I've ever been so happy to have a short shift in my life, or to work at a pharmacy - the medication that he's on is only supposed to be picked up by him but since I work there and they know both of us, they let me drop off the script and pick it up. 

I was lucky to be able to get the dogs into boarding on Wednesday, I have to leave on Thursday to go to New York with my mother. Mike will have to look after the cats, I'm going to leave a couple of big bowls of dry food out for them with a couple of big bowls of water out as well. One of our friends is coming over at least once a day, probably twice, to help Mike out and give the cats their wet food. I'm going to have to pick up some disposable litter trays so that our friend can just pick them up and throw them out each day. I'll be keeping in touch with him every day to make sure things are going alright, but I won't have the option of leaving and coming home if they aren't, so hopefully everything goes fine. 

Oh, poor Mike!  I hope he heals quickly. 

Hope he gets better very soon. Thinking of both of you!

Oh no!