Tuesday, March 8, 2011.
Oschner's Food Edible. Crutches.
I didn't get much sleep through the evening in the emergency room at Ochsner. They had four IV bags of fluid connected to me, some of them under pressure. I wound up taking in five liters of fluid before my blood pressure was back up to what is normal for me (which is a little high). They felt that I was out of danger now, and moved me to a room, where I saw a nurse and a doctor before I was allowed to go to sleep at last. Poor Mary Ann--she was awake though all of this.
I was awakened at around seven with breakfast and a visit from another doctor--a woman, like the one last night. We rehashed the event. It's the consensus that dehydration was the culprit, and a broken ankle was the crime. When I passed out, I crumpled down on top of my left foot.
One of the guys on the ambulance told me en route to the hospital that surgery to fix this was a given. The doctor this morning said that was probably true. But she said that the orthopedic specialist to see was in Ochsner's Depart met of Sports Medicine, which has a lot of experience with this sort of thing.
My only other broken bone was in fact a sports injury--a bad bicycle spill in 1984. But this sounds more serious than that.
The breakfast was generous and pretty good. Apple juice, applesauce (I wonder what percentage of straight applesauce eaten in America is consumed in hospitals), scrambled eggs, grits, a biscuit. Everything was low-sodium; they know I am on blood pressure medication. My regular doctor is an Ochsner guy, and they had access to all his records.
What I noticed more than any of that was the cheerful optimistic attitudes of all the people who came into the room, and how anything I asked for was dispatched immediately and without question. This is a long way from the hospital scenes of my youth, where patients were expected to follow orders, not the other way around.
I slept some more after breakfast, then awakened for good at nine. They told me that I would be fitted for crutches, and released around one in the afternoon. Mary Ann was very pleased to hear this. While waiting, she slept at her brother's house and I watched a few shows on the Food Network. Two back-to-back editions of Paula Deen, who y'alled me to distraction. She let out a line that caught my attention. Her son was seasoning some steaks by rubbing the spices into the meat. "Some people say I shouldn't encourage my sons to rub their meat," she said. There was no reaction from anyone on the screen to indicate that this was a double entendre.
I switched away from some more country people cooking more macaroni and cheese and grilled vegetables, and to the Travel Channel and the delightful Samantha Brown. I don't trust her thoughts about food--she's much too skinny--but she's a terrific host in every other way, with an interesting combination of sophistication and innocence.
A guy delivered the crutches and set them up for my height. Someone else was supposed to come by to show me how to use them, but didn't. Today is Mardi Gras, even though to me it didn't seem like it. Not only would I miss my annual broadcast from Gallier Hall, but also my farewell-to-beef dinner at the Crescent City Steakhouse. Twenty people were supposed to meet me for that. I hope they understand when I tell them later what happened to me.
Instead, at half past noon I got another tray of low-sodium food. Applesauce (of course), roasted chicken breast, peas, pasta with no detectable sauce, and a whole-wheat roll. The chicken was dry but more than edible.
Mary Ann managed to catch an hour of sleep back at the hotel, after a breakfast with her siblings, who will all be going home now. She would have slept longer, but people kept calling to find out how I was. The hotel's staff was hospitable and helpful to the maximum through all this.
She collected what was left of me at the hospital and we drove home through the first waves of what would be another big storm. She was not on a good mood.
