Day 4 - Shit happens!

Shit really DOES happen! And, of course, at the most inconvenient time and place.

John slipped in the shower this morning, and grabbed at the grab-bar. He caught it only with the little finger of his right hand - with immediate pain. But he didn't fall. He thought he had dislocated it and it had popped back into place. I taped the ring and little fingers together, turned in an incident report to the motel manager, filled a zipper bag with ice, packed up the car, and with me driving, headed down the road to our next stop. This included mostly visiting with one of John's and Ann's cousins.

We left John at a walk-in clinic in town and the rest of us went to the cousin's house. John called - x-rays showed that he had a broken bone in his hand. They were contacting an orthopedic surgeon in Binghamton, NY, who would probably plan to do surgery on his hand. Well, wonderful!!!!

I left Ann & Al with the cousins and went to pick up John and take off for the 20-mile drive to the hospital. I can say that the people at Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton were wonderful to us! We kept telling them - we're just starting on a long vacation. And, no, we weren't planning to head right home. And, no, John didn't want to stay overnight in the hospital. And, yes, they could do the surgery, but no, he didn't want to stay overnight.

They really were so helpful and solicitous and accommodating. They took him off to surgery at 5 p.m., and the surgeon came back out to talk to me at 6:15. He couldn't do a closed reduction, so wound up doing an open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF), with pins and cast, of what they term a "Boxer's" fracture. I saw the x-rays, and the bone of his little finger in the hand (metacarpal?) had a diagonal break and the ends overlapped.

In the meantime, Ann & Al and Bob & Anita had come to the hospital to see how things were going. Then B&A drove A&A around the area, and they all went out for dinner.

John was finally released from the hospital and we got back to the motel to meet the others about 9:30. A&A went out to get us something eat. Now, everybody else has gone to bed, and I'm getting the news out.

We do plan to continue on with our trip. Granted, John won't be much help for a while, but we'll do fine. We didn't have too much planned for tomorrow, and he'll be able to get some rest on the canal boat. I know it's really going to bother him most in the next couple of days, though. The surgeon wants him to be seen in about 10 days for a followup x-ray, so we'll see what we can work out about that. And then he'll see an orthopod at home to see about getting the pins out.

We really weren't looking for this kind of excitment. Sighhhhhhhhhhhh