Forever and Always: The Broken Arm

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! is definitely the response my new husband received when he called to tell me he was in the ER with a broken humerus while I was out of town!!

Let me give you a little bit of back ground story. Steve is a huge softball player!! It is one of his favorite things to do, Spring and Fall, with his friends. He has played on several teams over the years and really gets competitive with it. Since we have been together I have tried to be the most supportive softball player's wife that I can be. I have attended games, sat in the rain (that was early in the dating game :), and supplied the guys with drinks, because I wanted to be supportive and a good fan! In August of 2011, Steve injured his wrist sliding into 2nd or 3rd base (I don't remember at this point). He ended up breaking off the tips of his ulnar and radius and had to wear a cast for 4 weeks. Now everyone knows that wearing a cast for 4 weeks is going to cause weakness, fatigue, and muscle loss in the extremity. However, when it comes to men and their softball, all reason goes out the door!! =) Steve had cleared with his doctor that he could play "Fall Ball" after getting his cast off. I am not sure the doctor knew "Fall Ball" started 2 weeks later.

So against my wifely/nursing advise, my husband decides to play in a softball tournament 2 weeks after getting his cast off from a broken wrist. The best part about this story is that I was out of town, his parents were out of town, and my parents were leaving to go out of town the following morning. Well about 5 minutes into the 1st ending, Steve catches a ball in left field and attempts to throw it in to home. Now my husband is a great softball player, but not professional (except for the game he played 2 weeks after cast removal). Due to the muscle weakness and fatigue in his arm, Steve shattered his right humerus bone (the bone that connects your shoulder to your elbow). You would think that any husband would call his wife once at the hospital and tell her what had happened. But Steve had other plans. He waited until 5pm to call me (about 8 hours later) to til me what happened. Therefore you can imagine my expression when I hadn't talked to my husband ALL DAY to tell me he was in the hospital and was going to have surgery on Monday due to a shattered humerus from playing softball! Being the new wife that I am I went from angry to crying to pissed all in about 5 minutes. You see I was on my trip in DC to visit my very good friend, Beth, who has been waiting for me to come visit for 2 years. Between angry and crying I didn't know if I should in DC and finish my trip, trying get on the next flight home, or what. So after much debate and a lot of tears and a phone call to my mom, I decided to stay one more night in DC and fly home in the morning. I would still be home before Steve went to surgery and I asked my mom and dad go to the hospital to stay and check on Steve. All I can say is thank God for good friends, great parents, and really nice Delta workers. I had amazing friends in the ER taking great care of my husband, parents who dropped what they were doing to go be with my husband, Josh (one of Steve's best friends) stayed with Steve all day on Sunday until I got there, and Delta waived all the fees for me to change my flight and were very helpful when I was in panic mode.

Luckily, the resident taking care of Steve, was one of my best friend's boyfriend so Steve got a little extra care! The day of Steve's surgery I was a wreck!! I had been IN the hospital several times myself, but never have I had my husband in the hospital. I sat in the surgical waiting room with Steve's parents for 5 hours during his surgery and finally he was out and we got to see him a couple hours after that. The surgeon was soo nice and explained everything he did, and told us Steve was going to fine after some rehab. What he failed to mention was that he filleted my husband's arm open leaving a scar over a foot long.

A couple more days in the hospital and a couple of sponge baths later, Steve came home and all was well. He had several month of physical therapy and a lot of vitamin E oil rubbed on his arm, but 6 months later, Steve is healed and back to doing almost everything he did before....(Except NO softball never again :)

Here are a couple pictures to remind us of the event....