Saturday, 7/10/2004 9 pm
As most of you know, or may have heard through the grapevine, Candace
suffered a detached retina about three months ago and had been laid up
for a solid month or so due to the recovery process. Once that period
passed she was able to get up and around a bit, but due to the
'gas bubble' they put in her eye to hold things in place she was still
not able to see fully out of her left eye. On Friday she reported that
for the first time since the surgery that she could see no signs of the
bubble. Her vision has been very slowly returning towards normal
although we won't know the final result for another 2 months or so.
On Friday morning, we were playing golf with some friends who were
visiting from Seattle. Shortly after we started (about 9:45), her little
white thingy, which has a natural affinity for sand, landed up in a
bunker just off the left side of the green on "Mountain Two". The rest
of us were already on the green ready to putt. We knew about where she
was, and we were waiting for a ball to come flying from her general
direction. We could not see her as the bunker is quite deep. All of a
sudden we knew exactly where she was: We heard some very loud cussing
that would even make Dick Cheney blush.
I know what you are thinking: Her eye fell out. No.
Being 'smart' and very courteously not wanting to delay the rest of us
scratch golfers, she decided to enter the bunker from the green side,
which is incredibly steep. This saved her a minute or so since it was
not necessary to walk all the way around to the other side of the
bunker. She now knows that there's a good reason they tell you to enter
bunkers from the shallow side. She ended up slipping on the steep/wet
grass and tumbling into the bunker in a heap on top of her right leg.
We managed to get her out of the bunker and into a cart (and no, we
didn't finish putting first -- although we were tempted to do so).
I rushed her up to the house in the cart and into the car and took her
to the hospital. I insisted that our visiting friends, who had paid an
ungodly sum to play golf here (even in July) continue playing the rest
of the holes. (They later reported that they were so pumped up from the
all the 'action' that they both made par on the next hole, the scenic
"Mountain Three".)
Candace and I made it to the emergency room by 10:45 and (merely an hour
after we got there) we finally saw a doctor. Fortunately, there was not
much pain, (we still don't understand that). They took x-rays and
concluded she had rather badly broken her leg in two places. She ended
up spending the night there Friday. She went in for surgery and they put
it all back together about noon today (Saturday) with plates and screws.
She is spending the night in the hospital again tonight while they keep
an eye on her following the surgery. I'll be picking her up Sunday,
although we still don't know exactly when she'll be released. I'm
assuming this will be about 10 to 12 sometime.
There were three bone-docs involved in her treatment over the course
of the two days she's been there. They all said this type of fracture is
a very common situation (though none of them ever heard the "broke my
leg in a sand bunker on the golf course" part before) . She will fully
recover but it will take about 3 full months before she'll be able to
golf again. We will write then and tell you what calamity happens next.
That should be about mid September or so.
I mentioned to her yesterday while we were sitting in the ER area for
endless hours, that Friday morning, before any of this happened, I was
watching a program on the Discovery-Wings channel about women pilots.
There is this lady who is a rancher in Montana or Utah somewhere and she
and her husband have a huge ranch. They use a helicopter to patrol their
ranch for broken fences and such. it saves them endless hours of
4-wheeling or horseback riding to get to the far corners of the ranch,
and it permits her to pop into town for lunch with her lady friends in
20 minutes or so (whereas it would have taken two or three hours to
drive over the mountains to see them). One day while she was skimming
along a few feet above the ground checking the fences she popped up over
a hill and it spooked one of their cattle. It proceeded to jump over or
through the fence and dash onto a nearby highway, right in front of an
oncoming truck. The cow did not die, but ended up with 4 broken legs.
The helicopter set down nearby and the pilot said she watched helplessly
while the poor thing tried in vain to struggle to its feet. The guy that
hit the animal did not have a gun in his truck but they finally flagged
down another passing vehicle that did have one handy and mercifully put
the animal out of its misery. As a result, she now carries a hand-gun in
her helicopter to deal quickly with these sorts of unexpected
situations. I guess I'll have to get a Glock 45 now. You never know what
you will run into on the course these days.
During the admissions process at the hospital, and prior to surgery,
they asked at least four separate times whether she has a living will. I
suggested to the doctor, since I haven't got my Glock yet, and given all
the bad things that have happened to her this year, perhaps he should
just put her down for good.
Candace is still planning on coming home tomorrow in spite of me.
Mike
In the pre-op room::
Don't get excited, she was not a flat-liner here. This is an experimental Home Land Security/FBI/CIA sponsored mind-reading probe, not an EKG. As you can see, her thought's were "XX/XX" (one X higher than I thought was humanly possible). It must have been the drugs. The lady in the next bed said, "I'll have what she's having." I hope Candace remembers this dream so we can try it when she gets home.
Before surgery .. the curse of the mummy. (it's in a splint) It was not that swollen and her skin is not THAT bumpy.
La-La Land following surgery. They seem to really like to give morphine for pain at UMC This was taken after they were done and she was back in the room resting.
Even though it seemed obvious which leg was broken (from the splint and
all)
they still marked her foot before surgery so they wouldn't put the
screws in the wrong leg.
Or maybe that "X" is a physical manifestation of her earlier dream.
Or maybe the nine-holers group she belongs too has a secret tattoo
ritual,
wherein they tattoo their normal score for each hole on their big-toe
using Roman numerals.