No More Hippies Jumping on the Bed

In early June Hippylady fell down and broke her shoulder. She didn’t just fall down, she fell off her bed, hit her chest of drawers, and then hit the floor. The incident, that would have caused a lesser person to shatter their shoulder, cased a little teeny, tiny fracture in the end of her upper humerus bone. Hippylady is made of sturdy stuff. It sounds like she almost got away scott-free, right? No such luck.

According to three doctors it was in one of the worst possible places to break a bone, especially a large bone like the humerus. She was sent home, but only after they trussed her up in a mobile traction do-dad called an 'immobilization wrap’ and taught me how to manipulate it and deal with it. The idea was that she was not move her shoulder at all. The slightest movement could cause the shoulder blade to knock into the break and make humerus bone come completely apart. The resulting emergency surgery would lay her up not for months, but for years.

This is something we want to avoid at all costs, and so far things are going as well as can be expected. She frustrated; she’s in pain; but she’s behaving... for the most part. I take her to see the specialist in a few days and we’ll see if she can shed the Dreaded Wrap. But, even if she can, she’ll only move on to stage 2 of her treatment, which will be restricted movement and the beginnings of many months of physical therapy. She still won’t be able to travel, or even go on a normal day-long shopping trip to restock supplies.

Right now she’s looking forward to just being able to tag along to go to the local grocery store for half an hour.

And yes, she was officially ordered by her GP, “No more hippies jumping on the bed.”