Pat: grace personified

On Tuesday I had to take John for a medical procedure (he's fine thank God!) my sister Pat came to watch the kids for a few hours. We put a 15' x 4' pool up last week so she brought her bathing suit.

As John and I were leaving the surgical center in Owings Mills #1 Son calls on my cell phone yelling, "Aunt Pat broke her ankle!" I wasn't completely panicked yet because #2 Son can get a paper-cut and be quite certain he needs stitches. I got #1 Son to take the phone out to her. She says, "My foot is sitting at a weird angle!" Crap! Now I'm worried. She mis-stepped putting her foot on the ground coming down the pool ladder and twisted her left ankle. We called some neighbors but found no one home. John and I discussed how we were going to get her into the car and came to the conclusion that WE weren't going to. So I called 911 from the cell phone and told them there was a woman with a broken ankle in the backyard.

The fire department came right away so by the time we reached home (I played Frogger on I-695 all the way home) they had her ankle splinted and helped her into a deck chair. One of the fireman reached into the pool and pulled at the Bruce the Shark blow-up toy and propped her foot up (I considered pulling my cell phone out and taking her picture but I thought she might kill me). The ambulance soon followed. They whisked her away into the ambulance while I gathered up her purse and clothes . . . Yep, you guessed it, she went to the ER in a fetching navy blue one-piece bathing suit with little white anchors.

At St. Agnes Hospital they x-rayed her foot and decided it was broken in two places (bilateral break) and . . . . wait . . . is that a third break we see? A CAT-scan showed she had the trifecta of ankle breaks. The ER doc said he couldn't set it, she needed surgery. They splinted her ankle. I think she invented some new works for the FCC to ban. They also ran all her pre-op tests so she wouldn't have to make another trip back. The ER doc sent her home to stay in bed and keep her foot elevated and iced and only to get up to go to the potty.

While in the ER she was known as the lady in the bathing suit. That is until she had to pee. Wendy and I had to peel her out of the bathing suit like a banana! We dressed her back in her clothes.

Pat is scheduled for surgery on Tuesday at St. Agnes. She went to the orthopedic surgeon today, Dr. Sam Sydney, but I don't have a report on that yet. He did tell her on the phone that the fall she took should not have resulted in a triple break and will be checking her for osteoporosis. Stay tuned for more Pat news . . .

Never a dull moment at my house!