My Trip to the Emergency Room

After my terrible fall, my husband called 911, telling the operator that I needed to be transported to the hospital since I couldn't get into our car.  He told the operator, "They don't need to turn the siren on or anything like that." A few minutes later, we heard a siren approaching, and looking out the window, saw a firetruck and am an ambulance, along with 4 firemen and 2 paramedics from the ambulance.  Well, I guess all our neighbors are in for a show, I thought.

I had four firemen in my front room helping me lie down. Sounds a bit like the beginning of a sexy erotic romance, doesn't it?  Not so. They put me on a stretcher and loaded me into an ambulance taking me to St. Joseph's Hospital's Emergency Room.  All the while I was praying that I didn't have a broken hip.

Once inside the hospital, the nurses took me to get an X-ray and tried to transfer me from the hospital bed to a table where they could x-ray me. When they lined up my bed to the x-ray table, they said, "Scoot over." It was impossible: I couldn't. It was too painful and my hips weren't working. It felt like my pelvis was paralyzed. Eventually, they got a blanket underneath me and pulled it slowly, moving me over to the table.  They told me to bend my feet so that my big toes met.  I complied, but it was very painful.

They took me back to my room, and I waited for the results.  A young doctor who looked like the main character in a 60s show Doctor Kildare came in looking chipper.  He told me, "Well...I've good some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that you don't have a broken hip.  The bad news is that you fractured your pelvis in two places."

He also told me that there was nothing they could do about it and the best course of action was pain management and physical therapy.  They ordered a walker for me and I waited for about a half-hour.  A nurse came in and gave me a shot of a pain killer. I was so glad that I didn't have to stay overnight in the hospital.  I had visions of having to be there for days and then being transferred to a rehabilitation hospital--a very bleak outlook indeed.

Physical Therapy and Exercises for a Fractured Pelvis

I'm lucky to have good health insurance so I was able to get out-patient physical therapy after I fractured my pelvis. There is a great place to go near my house where I went before after I fractured my knee in 2008; so I trusted them, which is a big part of recovery from any traumatic injury. I needed to have confidence that my physical therapist wasn't going to hurt my injury and make it worse.

 A lot of physical therapy is manual resistance training where the therapist forces you to press against his or her hand as they move your injured leg around in ways you would have never imagined it was capable of. One of the first scary things he did was to pull my knees apart and then force me to try to put them back together, pushing against his grip. My leg had atrophied since my injury and this move was a lot harder than you'd think. Another challenging action my physical therapist did was to lift my injured leg all the way up upon his shoulder and then ask me to press my ankle against his body.  At first, I thought, you have got to be kidding.  I didn't think I could do it, but I did.  One of the first "accomplishments" I could do today was to stand up and sit down without relying on a walker.  This was a big deal for me.  He tried to help me walk across the room and take a few steps without a walker, but I wasn't able to accomplish it yet.  After only a few steps, I told him, "I can't do it."  I have so many things to learn.  The biggest ingredient in a successful physical therapy session is to lose the fear of falling and the horrible memory of how much it hurt when I fell. I will walk again!

Here are some exercises my physical therapist had me do for my fractured pelvis:

If the print on the samples below is too small for you to read, please go to my-exercise-code.com and use code QG48BHC when prompted. The website even has videos you can watch to learn how to do these exercises correctly.

One Year After My Pelvis Fractures

Help!! I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up 

I had always feared that one day I might fall, break my hip, be alone, and not be able to sit up or crawl to the phone to call 911. 

Well, a year ago today, when I was 64 years old, my fears became reality. I tripped over a bathroom scale that I had carelessly left in the hall after mopping the bathroom floor.

My arms flailed about, trying to keep my balance when Bam!  I first landed on my arm, and then with a thud, crashed down on my left hip.

The pain was absolutely searing! I'd never felt anything like it. I couldn't move, let alone crawl to the phone to call for help. I was afraid that I was paralyzed. I lay there helpless until my husband came home. Horrified by the way I looked, he tried to help me sit up. After about an hour, I finally was able to prop myself against the wall. An ambulance took me to the hospital where I was x-rayed and I found out that I fractured not my hip, but my pelvis which fractured in two places. 

It was a long road to recovery. After my fall, I went twice a week to physical therapy for two months. I knew how important it was to exercise, so, even with a walker, I kept up my morning habit of walking in the neighborhood, if only for a block or so and then slowly going a little longer as the days passed.

I was unable to walk without the help of a walker for about 6 weeks. When I stood up and took my first step by myself at physical therapy one day, I felt like it was a miracle.  

The injury was a very painful one, and I got by with the help of Motrin, a heating pad, ice packs, and an electronic muscle stimulator such as a TENS unit (ask your physical therapist where to get one).

My biggest challenge was bending over when I had to pick up something. My friends suggested a grabber so I bought one and it was great. When I was able to bend over and pick something up without its help, it was a big accomplishment. 

For several months after my fall, I had trouble getting on the floor if I had to dust a lower shelf of a bookshelf. I needed to lay down on my side to do it. I was unable to get up off the floor without pulling myself up with a chair or coffee table. I had to do this for months after my injury. 

When I fell in the hall, I had nothing to grab on to and was helpless.  After that, I thought I'd never be able to get up off the floor without depending on a prop of some kind. 

A big milestone happened yesterday.  I finally got the courage to go down on the floor and try to pull myself up to a standing position without leaning against something. This is how I did it: I knelt down on all fours and bent one leg.  I put my hands on my bent knee and pushed myself up. It hurt a little bit, and I could feel a slight strain, but I could do it! Big Yay! After a few minutes, I didn't feel the strain anymore and was so pleased to have overcome my biggest hurdle.

So, it's a year later and I'm as good as new. I can walk almost two miles a day and I don't have any pain. To those of you with a fractured pelvis, don't give up. 

I hope my posts have helped you and given you some encouragement. You can do this! Yes, you can!