Broken Memories

It’s amazing how traumatic events remain lodged firmly in your brain

Despite my first fracture happening half a century ago, I can remember it like it was yesterday. My dear brain has managed to park the whole event into an easily-opened vault.

The weird thing is when it actually happened, it didn’t even hurt. I was running home from school for lunch with a friend. We were hand-in-hand — a typical girly thing to do back then — and she was running a little faster than me.

I tripped, and when I fell, my right arm smacked the edge of a pothole in the pavement. When I stood up to brush myself off, a little embarrassed for being so clumsy, my arm was stuck in a bird-like position; vertically sticking up from the elbow.

I immediately freaked out because it looked weird, and it wouldn’t move. I continued on home and when I walked in the door and saw my mum, that’s when the tears started.

We went straight to the hospital after mum had called Dad at his work to drive us there. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong day to break my arm; the x-ray technicians were on strike and we had to wait for ages to have the confirmation it was indeed broken.

I’d done a pretty good job, breaking both my radius and ulnar about halfway up my forearm. It was a closed fracture — the break hadn’t punctured through the skin — but it was decidedly displaced.

And then the ‘fun’ began.

I recall vividly the blood pressure cuff placed on my upper arm being pumped up so tight I thought my arm was going to fall off. The doctor then manipulated my arm back into alignment.

Aside from childbirth, much later in life, it was the most excruciatingly painful experience ever.

Next came the application of the Plaster of Paris cast. My arm was wrapped in a soft, cotton padding before the cold slabs of ‘cement’ were slapped and molded into place to immobilize my arm.

The cast was from my fingers to my upper arm. It was so heavy that the first night, my arm fell out of bed and I couldn’t put it back under the covers. If I wiggled my fingers — which they asked me to do often — it hurt like hell.

Unfortunately, I was right-handed, so for the next six weeks, I had to learn to write with my left. It was slow and messy. The only good thing was I got out of going to piano lessons and I missed a couple of weeks of school as mum was worried I’d hurt it even more.

It was fun having everyone sign my cast. I kinda liked being different from the other kids, even if it was short-lived.

Once the healing process started, my arm became incredibly itchy. Despite being told not to, the only way to relieve the discomfort was to stick a knitting needle down the cast and poke blindly at the source. When they took the cast off and replaced it with another that only went to my elbow six weeks later, my arm was shrivelled, yellow, and peeling. Ew!

Now that was a scary moment; imagine someone coming at you with a circular saw and slicing off the cement on your arm? I was terrified they were going to cut me open!

The one great thing was being intrigued with everything hospital-related. I am sure this event was a factor that enticed me to go nursing years later. It certainly has helped me be more empathic to anyone with a fracture — especially when I was the one cutting off casts sometimes!

Since then, I’ve managed to break my wrist twice. Ten years ago, I was taking down curtains in preparation to move house when the chair toppled backward and I went with it. The natural thing to do is to put your hand out to stop the fall; the pain was instant and horrific. I couldn’t move for 15 minutes as I thought I was either going to throw up or pass out. Quite the opposite experience from all those years ago.

When I finally could get to my phone and call a friend to take me to Emerg, I waited for hours — again — only to be told it wasn’t broken, but just a bad sprain.

Well, I’m 99% they were wrong as it took forever for that wrist to heal, and as I was working with babies at the time, I couldn’t go to work as any pressure or use of the wrist would cause instant, shooting pain and I would drop things. Not ideal!

A doctor friend from the UK visited me a couple of weeks into my recovery and noticed a calcified bump where the ‘non-fracture’ was, and he was convinced it was broken, but it had been missed on the x-ray. Great.

The last event was just a month ago. I was walking my son to the train and went arse over kite on black ice. Again, I put my hand out to stop the fall and the pain was instant, but not as brutal. I waited 3 days before deciding I should get an x-ray, as I couldn’t straighten my elbow, and wrist flexion was painful.

Sure enough, I’d broken both my wrist and the radial head. The orthopedic surgeon decided to treat me conservatively; no cast for the arm and just a splint for my wrist. I was pleased not to have the annoyance of immobility, but given my wrist is still tender, I question that decision.

Consequently, my kids think I should wear crampons and have a walking frame to venture outside in winter!

Thanks to Adrienne Beaumont for prompting this story to be written. Her typically humorous tale of broken ribs spurred my memory into action!