2001-01-11 - 07:18:34
9 a.m. Saturday morning. I wake up for some reason, feeling like I better be awake. I decide to check and see if the car seats have been taken out of the car, are in the garage, and will be there for our (my mom and I) convenience so we (my three kids and I) can all be chauffered by my mommy to my nephew's birthday party. Well, they aren't. I call Jimbo on his cell phone to scold him for being so silly and forgetting something that was my responsibility more than his anyway, but, I'm comfortable with blaming. We had argued the night before, but, had somehow made up in the dead of night, when he put his arms around me when he rolled over after I had finally lost to an insomnia bout and had gone to bed.
His voice mail comes on. I tease him and ask him to call me to let me know where exactly he is even though I have a good idea. I sit and wait.
The phone rings, I pick it up.
It's not Jimbo.
It's not my mom telling me she's on her way.
It's some lady named Anna who I have known for about twenty years who has been friends with my sister, but, now happens to be the wife of one of Jimbo's co-workers.
"Hedder?"
"Uh, yeah, Anna?"
"Yeah, I'm calling to let you know, Terry just called me to tell me that Jimbo fell off a roof and he broke his wrist."
My worst nightmare, daymare, hallucination has come true.
"Is he all right? He really broke his wrist? Where is he?"
"Well, they said that the bone is poking through his skin. He was taken to the hospital."
I madly dial the phone (it's still 9 a.m.-ish) to get my mother on her way so I can go and get my car which I'm sure is on the job site and rush to be with him. She was on her way over and would have gotten there at about 10 a.m. anyway, so, I figured when I call her, she can hurry up to come here sooner.
"Mom, you have to come now, Jimbo fell off a roof and hurt his arm bad, it's broken, Mom, Jimbo BROKE his ARM."
"Just hang on, Hedder, I'm getting dressed right now."
"Please, HURRY."
She didn't get there until 11 a.m. First, she had to call EVERYONE in my family, just about. THEN. MY. MOTHER. THE. CRISIS. HOG. WENT. AND. SAW. MYYYYYYYYY. BOYFRIEND. IN. THE. EMERGENCY. ROOM. BEFORE. I. DID. **tongue click** She is such a crisis hog. His OWN mother didn't even do that. Uh. I was devestated. I had already called every source of moral support I could think of to counsel with. I cried, I laughed, I got dizzy, I blew up with adrenalin, I felt sick, I felt nervous, anxious, weak, and most of all URGENT. I had already made plans to have Anna come and get me once my mom got there so I could go and get my car. Then, my next plan was to race to be with Jimbo. My mother called back once at 9:40 a.m. to tell me she was on her way. I was bewildered and asked her why she hadn't LEFT YET.
I called Jimbo's cell phone and his ride to the hospital answered, thank God. I asked him about everything he knew and he would need surgery probably, but they would let him know, cuz Jimbo was still in X-ray. Then, a secretary lady called to tell me that Jimbo was leaving soon from there in an ambulance to go to the other hospital which deals more in trauma and would have surgery there.
FINALLY. MY. MOM. SHOWED. UP. AND. TOLD. ME. THAT. SHE. HAD. GONE. AND. SEEN. HIM.
If she wasn't my mother and wasn't about to watch all my three kids for the next eight hours, I would have frigging smacked the shit out of her.
Anna races to get me to my car, but, misses the short cut turns here and there while I wriggle in my seat. We get to the site, I am met by other co-workers of his who tell me how he fell off the roof and who took him where and where all his tools are. I am also met by his boss who I ask if he took care of Worker's Comp. He says yes, it's all taken care of. Okay, good.
I speed off to race BACK home to drop off the girls' car seats to my mother who is in my home still. She has done their hair and gotten them dressed. I can't see straight. I am well aware of a huge sense of URGENCY that is welling up in the center of my chest. My adrenalin is sucking the weakness out of me. I rarely go below 60 mph on the way there. I think I even took the highway but I can't remember now at all.
I arrive at the correct hospital, I ask at the information desk where he's at. They send me to a patient room on the Orthopedics Wing. It's clean and empty. He's not there yet. I ask someone. They tell me he's still in surgery. I ask them where that is. They take me there. I linger outside of the big double doors with glass windows that read AUTHORIZATION ONLY or something. I glare around at the empty hallway and search for the button I've seen on so many Trauma-TLC episodes. Little do I know, it's directly behind my back. I run over to the doors and yank open the right one. It is heavy. I slip through. I don't care. Everything is white. Very white. And clean. And so bright. I walk until I see someone. I ask her where "he" is. She tells me he's getting prepped for surgery. I tell her I need to see him. She goes through somewhere, comes out again and tells me that he's already in the operating room. No, I can't see him. (Thanks a lot, Mom.) I ask if I can watch. She says no, kind of amused. I tell her I like to watch things like that. She looks confused.
I wait for about two hours. I grill everyone that walks out of the double doors and looks like they work there. A couple of the nurses know who he is and tell me he's still back in surgery. My mind races with the rent being due this week. The fact that he's right-handed and this is his right hand. The fact that this happened doing his only trade or skill that he has known and that he REALLY enjoys. Yes, he's only 26, but, who fucking cares. He doesn't want to learn anything else right now.
My poor baby.
We had fought the night before. I stayed up late on purpose putting Christmas shit away cuz I was mad at him. I felt like I had jinxed him. I missed him. I wanted to see him. I wanted to tell him not to worry about the rent or the bills, that things would be taken care of, somehow. I thought about having to dance again. I wondered how much it had hurt. I wondered if he had thought of me.
The next nurse I drill tells me that they are halfway through. I ask if it's going to take a few screws. She tells me he's going to need an external fixiator. Huh? I watch someone with his X-ray walk by. I want to attack him for answers. Finally, two men approach me asking his last name. YES! He tells me that he's going to tell me how things went. I immediately ask him what an external fixiator is. He tells me two screws here, pointing at the hand end of the arm, and two screws here, pointing at the elbow end of the forearm, and a metal bar connecting them on the outside of his skin. I stare at his arm where he had made the explanation. I wondered if this doctor has ever needed one of those. My jaw drops open slightly, involuntarily. I take it all in as he explains the need he had for an incision at the bottom of his hand to release a nerve that was being pressed and had caused his fingers to be numbed completely...well, three fingers. The explanation was basically his ulna AND his radius had both completely broken sending whichever one that is on the outside (pinky-side) through his skin. Basically, his hand was cut off, but, the muscles and skin had remained unchanged, except the double compund fracture wound of course. The surgeon said to give them about an hour to bring him out before I could go back there. I paced some more. and more. AND MORE. Finally, I was led back there by a very nice nurse.
Jimbo was all completely wrapped in white blankets except for his face...even his top of his head had a blanket wrapped around it, he looked like a sweet little Iranian woman. He looked at me, even though he doesn't even remember that day, and told me he was sorry we fought. He asked how we were going to pay the rent. He mentioned almost all the things that I had paced around thinking before I had gotten to see him. My poor baby.
That is all for now. More later.
