February 13, 2020
A not so typical day turned into a day that I will never forget.
February 12th produced an atypical rainstorm. But through the night, the temperature dropped and turned bitter cold by the morning of the 13th. A school group planned a visit to the Library and I planned to arrive early to work with them. Vinny, our then 12-year-old collie, had an appointment to have his teeth cleaned. It was a full day before it even began.
We dropped off Vinny a little after 8 am and arrived to work at 8:45 am. As I was walking into the building, I slipped on a patch of ice on the sidewalk and landed on my left shoulder. After the initial shock of realizing what happened, my wife checked me out and helped me to stand up. I was in pain, but I thought everything would be okay. I managed to walk inside, check-in with the security office, and went into the restroom before heading to my desk. While heading upstairs with my wife by my side, I had to sit down at one of the tables because the pain began to increase to an unbearable point. After sitting for a few minutes and thinking it was getting better, I attempted to stand up. The pain shot through my body and I never made it up. My wife asked the security officer to call an ambulance. I needed to go to the emergency room for further observations and testing.
Thankfully the ambulance arrived quickly and my trip to the ER was short. The hospital was only about a mile away. Not many people were in the ER, so the doctors and nurses checked me out soon after arriving. After a set of X-rays, they determined that I fractured my left humerus bone, just below the shoulder. When I lost my footing on the ice and since the sidewalk sloped downward, my shoulder and arm took a direct hit instead of my bum.
The doctors decided that the fracture was not severe enough to put on a cast, but a sling would suffice. The doctor advised me to follow up with an orthopedic surgeon within a few days to determine a full recovery plan. The days and weeks ahead would be a challenge. One that I have never forget. In all my life, I had never broken any bones, so this was a first for me. In a series of posts, I will share some of my experiences and how it took almost six months to be back to normal.
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