Emergency Strikes

After only a little more than a week in France we are already dealing with crisis.  My previous post described the afternoon where we took the girls knee boarding, and Teah ended up trying to swim to Switzerland.  Well, there’s more to this story.  After we got Teah back on the boat the rest of us were going to try our hand at wake surfing.  Marc’s brother, Olivier, went first to show us how it’s done.  It looked super fun.  You use a surf board, let the boat pull you up on to it’s wake, drop the rope, and literally surf the wake. 

Marc and I were surfers not too long ago and this seemed right up our alley.  After Olivier’s turn Marc went next and I was to follow him.  Marc tried 2 times to get up but getting his balance proved much more difficult than Olivier made it look.  However on his 3^rd try disaster struck.  He quickly fell and the boat circled around.  I’m still trying to console Teah and the next thing I know Olivier is reaching down into the water trying to lift Marc up on to the boat.  What happened?!?!

Oh no!  Marc had dislocated his shoulder!!  This is not the first time this has happened.  Actually it’s the 3^rd time but the last time was almost 17 years ago and I’m afraid to say it wasn’t on the front of our mind.  But with fatigue setting in the 3^rd time the boat tried to pull him, it pulled his shoulder right out of the socket!  The rest of the evening was quite an adventure.

Marc was in an insane amount of pain and trying very hard to not show it to the girls however the girls had never seen their Papa in pain or hurt so they proceeded to start to panic, immediately assuming the worst.  Lola asked if Papa was going to die.  I had to try to explain that although it hurt a lot a shoulder injury would not kill their Papa.  We got him back to the dock and his brother quickly went to get the car.  We helped him into the car and drove to the closest hospital.  With every bump, Marc was wincing in pain.   We get to the hospital and thankfully they immediately wheel him back into the ED.

Now we just had to wait, hoping they would quickly get him out of pain, put his shoulder back, and we could take him home.  Side note: We got to the ED a little after 6pm, we had 6 dinner guests arriving at the house at 7:30pm.  Olivier and I meet with the “charge nurse” and explained that we’re visiting from the US, that Marc is a French citizen, but “No” he’s not working and “No” he doesn’t have emergency medical insurance.  Ugh!!  To get our visas I got travel insurance for me and the girls but Marc didn’t need it to travel and I just assumed he’s be covered by Social Security once we arrived.  Nope.  Not how it works.  He has to be working to start taking advantage of Social Security or has to be back in his country for at least 3 months before it kicks in.  Oh boy!  At this point, I’m just bracing myself to pay whatever the bill is going to be.  It’s not like we were going to bring him home and put his shoulder back in ourselves.

We drive the girls back to the house, quickly change out of our swim suits, grab some of Marc’s documents, and Olivier and I head back to the hospital to wait for him.  Within 10 or 15 minutes of coming back a nurse comes out and tells us that they put his shoulder back in, they’re waiting for him to wake up, and then he can be discharged.  Great!! 

Two hours later we’re finally checking him out.  Unfortunately after we drop him off at the ED and head home a big car accident happens on the freeway and the injured start arriving at the hospital.  Obviously this is taking precedence to Marc’s release, so………we wait.  Finally a nurse comes out and says we can go back with her to get Marc. 

While we were waiting and wondering here’s what was actually happening to poor Marc:

Hindsight is 20/20 …. That was a stupid decision to try to get towed by a boat holding on to a rope with what I knew to be compromised shoulders. I will blame my brother, first because, well that’s what bothers do, second because he DID make it look easy and really fun. OK, it wasn’t that easy and as it turned out NOT FUN AT ALL.

I knew right away my shoulder was out and the game was over. I also knew right away what was awaiting me in the next few hours as this had happened twice in the states before: Painful trip to the ER, some waiting, a nice dose of morphine then a sudden relaxation and mental detachment to my dire condition, an expert ER doc assisted by sweet and supportive nurses going 1-2-3, pop the shoulder back in and done. I also knew that the recovery would be painful, but each time shorter in duration and less intense in pain.

Sometimes, you think you know and, well, you don’t know shit! (Disclaimer: I was under an extreme amount of pain and at some point under some kind of something… so you are getting an account that is probably far from objective, and I apologize upfront if I am offending any nurses, doctors, the town of Thonon or France for that matter.)

Yes the ride to the ER was painful and although from Dionne’s perspective they wheeled me in right away, they did park me for a while, then took me to radiology and eventually strapped a mask helping me breathe some laughing gas. Then a few more nurses helped me move from my wheel chair to an ER bed. OK, I was not laughing, not even smirking. At first I pointed out as politely as I could that the nurses needed to brush up on their joke routine, but it became quickly apparent that the gas had absolutely no effect. One of the nurses realized that the tank was almost empty and decided to start me on a new tank. “Now you are going to feel the difference, it’s a new tank” she tells me. What the f***! I couldn’t even get a happy thought with this stuff. I told her that my dentist had better quality laughing gas back home, and I wasn’t joking.

So until now, I was thinking they were trying to mellow me down while they were getting the “good stuff” ready and at this point I still didn’t have an IV in me. Just then a young MD (intern??) came by, sat next to me and looked me in the eye with that – trust me buddy, I will make it all better in a jiffy – look and that's when I understood that the plan was to put my shoulder back with the help of 2 other nurses with, as far as I could tell, no more than some hospital smelling air blowing through a mask on my face, I wanted to say ”f*** no” but it was happening and within seconds I was in such intense pain I just wanted to pass out. That was the first failed attempt and now my trust in the system was gone, just like that. I took over the situation by establishing what I needed. First I requested one nurse put a towel under my arm and pull up to relieve the extreme pain I was under while the doc was pulling my arm down, second I drop the bomb: I need drugs, not this bad smelling air that did nothing to me if they wanted to give it another try. When I saw one of the nurses setting up an IV I relaxed again as I knew I would be able to take a second attempt to repair the dislocation. I will spare you the ER lingo, which actually makes a lot more sense when you are watching a show on TV, but eventually the cute nurse (the only one) pushes X cc of something that did not sound like morphine into my vein. OK maybe the French have something similar with a more romantic name, this nightmare was going to be over soon.

After what seems like a few minutes, the dream team that had botched the first attempt was back in action. At this point I was groggy from the drug they injected in me, but far from detached and relaxed. I was still very present and aware. The second attempt was just as bad as the first, except that the pain was just ever so slightly more bearable. At this point some bad words may or may not have escaped my mouth and they may or may not have been directed at the people hurting me.

Once I calmed down and the team had resumed traction on the arm and armpit, the “doc” felt like an explanation was “de rigeur” and basically told me that she didn’t have the strength to put it back. They were waiting for some backup and would take care of it. I must say that at that point I was falling into a place where trust was gone, fear of more pain inflicted on me was growing and the drug was strangely warping my experience as if I was out of it, but not so much that I wouldn’t feel the torture.

And just like that I was thrown in the middle of the painful third and thankfully last attempt when the dream team, plus one, took forever to finally put my shoulder back. At that point, all I could do is close my eyes and start the process of forgetting this incredible experience. Apparently I managed to fall asleep and eventually woke up an hour later. The dream team was gone and 3 other nurses were arguing over the trash routine as if I was tele-ported into the maintenance room. The walls were hospital color and had not seen a paint brush in 40 years. I was half expecting to see a few discarded tires in the corner of the room and a car on a lift waiting for an oil change. But I was just where I had been all along, in the ER room.

Once awake, I was wheeled on my bed to the hallway were I joined all the other patients in various levels of health, and various stages of waiting. What was I waiting for? I was out of it and feeling every moan, grunt, and cough from the patients around me so loud in my head. The staff was busy walking this way or that way. And all of a sudden the whole ER got crazy with Ambulances dumping more patients in the system, the place was buzzing like a bee hive. Something had happened, which was eventually confirmed, “we had a big accident and we need to give these patients priority” said a nurse. I would just need to wait longer to do another X-ray to make sure my dream team had not f***ed it up a third time. So I waited. 45 minutes later, I was wheeled to radiology and the nurse there had just started her shift, she placed me on the first machine and it didn’t work, the second didn’t work either. She was getting very frustrated. “Can you walk?” she asked, “I think so” I responded, “then, lets walk to another room because I don’t want to push your gurney around.” I was happy to oblige, we finally located a functioning x-ray machine, she did her thing, I did mine and she parked me into another hallway to be pick-up by someone. I waited. 20 minutes later – I was parked right under the clock – she came out and was baffled that no one had picked me up. She took it upon herself to wheel me back to my original waiting spot, amazingly still available, and I waited some more to be checked and released. I was so happy to finally see my brother and Dionne walk in and talk to me.

In the end the physical trauma left me with more stretched ligaments and bruised muscles, I probably tore something in there as well, but time will help get my shoulder back to my new normal. A few times a day, I have flash backs of the pain I endured during the attempts at repairing the dislocation, and based on my past experience, that will last for a few years.

After working for Kaiser for over 15 years, I do know what a typical United States Emergency Room looks like.  I didn’t take any pictures but let’s just say this was nothing like I had seen before.  We are walking down hallways filled with people on stretchers in various stages of angst.  Marc is on one of them.  Everything looks so outdated and old.  Almost like we’ve been transported into a 1930’s movie.  Super strange.

We quickly grab Marc.  He’s relieved to see us and walk him back out to the waiting room to check him out.  The moment for the bill.  There’s a pit in my stomach.  Olivier goes into the room to take care of it.  He comes out a few minutes later.  So??  What’s the damage, I ask.  A whopping $150 Euros.  What??  You’ve got to be kidding me??  Relief, is the best word I can use to describe how I felt.  Marc on the other hand was pissed.  He would have gladly paid 3 times that if his pain had been better dealt with.

By the time we get home at 9:30pm the party is in full swing and Marc is in no mood to party.  He says hi to everyone, grabs a banana, and quickly heads off to bed.  Olivier and I on the other hand quickly grab a glass of wine and join the others for dinner; staying up until almost 2 am.

The next morning Marc is in better spirits and thankfully not in too much pain.  But now the harsh reality of 2 weeks in the sling followed by 4 weeks of physical therapy still lays in front of him.  No more wake surfing for us.