Game Over

Let’s face it, it was kinda getting’ too good to be true. Weekend trips to Jackson Hole for kids’ hockey tournaments, deep bonding conversations on the gondola with teenagers after school, homework (mostly) turned in on time, everyone getting in fighting shape. Pinch me now…which is exactly what Luke did to his doctor Sunday (combined with a left upper cut,) reacting to the pain of being casted for a spiral-fractured tibia.

Messing around after ski practice Sunday, skiing off rocks at Dollar Mountain, Luke had a tough landing from what he reports to me to have been a five foot drop (and, to his friends fifteen; I’m assuming it was somewhere in between.) Whatever it was, not enough snow and he snapped his leg. Many thanks to his buddy Brian who hiked up and got help, to the ski patrol who brought him down, the ambulance crew, a great nurse, his friend’s mom who was the radiologist, a wonderful anesthesiologist and Dr. Tony the orthoped, for treating him with such care. He is now sporting a cast up to his hip. Skis returned, hockey season over; ‘tis disappointing for all. Fortunately the pain seems to have subsided–he had a lot in the first two days. It took 3 narcotics and 3 hours at the hospital to get his ski boot off, followed by all kinds of normal but scary reactions to the drugs and the pain–rashes and fast dropping oxygen levels. It all culminated with a feisty punch-throwing name-calling, tossing and turning bout of agitation while grappling with general anesthesia and the application of a full-length cast  (he woke from all of it with a smile and a thank you.) And thank God for modern medicine–I could have used some!

Today marked his first solo trip to the bathroom and a relocation from the bed to the couch. He is out of pain, which is a tremendous relief for all, especially for Nurse Nightingale who is on the receiving end of a moody pre-teen’s discomfort.  He is receiving visitors, cookies, care packages and becoming a phenom at Call of Duty. I think he is in some sort of eye of the storm as he leaves behind pain and shock and is about to enter the reality of crutching through ice, a backlog of homework and missing out on a whole lot of hockey, skiing and class outdoor trips. Tomorrow we visit the doctor and see exactly what the next few months look like (for us all!) Not ideal but in the context of all that looms large in this world, a blip on the screen.

Now we start to take very slow very small steps toward what we hope and anticipate will be a full recovery, with perhaps  a lesson learned about the consequences of “going big.”