One of my favorite blogs that I read regularly is called Lame Adventures. She writes about her everyday experiences in a humorous way. Before getting into my story, I have to give credit to the Lame Adventures blog for the title of this one and the idea of making my tragic moment into a blog story.
Isabelle
I have a pretty good-sized dog. Isabelle is a German and Australian shepherd cross (or as my son calls her, the international shepherd.) About 55 pounds. Yesterday I took her out for a pee break. On the way back to the house I noticed the neighbor’s dog Jake outside of his fenced yard. Neighbor here is not that close since each property has several acres.
As I headed toward the escaped dog he ran out in the road into the path of an oncoming car. I started running in his direction hoping to get him into his yard before the car got there. I jog with my dog sometimes and she runs along beside me without causing any trouble. I hadn’t bothered to cross to the other side of the street though, and she’s used staying on the dirt strip alongside the pavement rather than running on the road itself.
Isabelle ran along quietly until she noticed Jake on the loose and got all excited. She took a sudden turn and ran right in front of me, launching me over top of her back for a hard landing on the pavement. I broke the fall with the non-leash holding hand and can barely move that arm now. Also got a skinned knee and swollen cuts above and below one eye. The car went around first Jake then me and Isabelle then went on its merry way without stopping to see if I was OK, though they must have seen me fall.
I managed to get up and get over to Jake’s place to put him inside his yard. I had intended to go up to the door and let his owner know he’d been out, but was too dizzy by that point to do anything more than open the gate, let him in and latch it shut.
I got about halfway back home before my dizziness got to the lay down or fall down point so I crossed over the ditch between the street and my yard and laid down in the grass to recover. Passing out from things like injuries runs in my family and has happened to me before. I learned the hard way when that feeling comes I can’t ignore it. Meanwhile a truck went by and this one stopped to ask if I was OK. I didn’t know my face was bleeding until the guy in the truck said so. I didn’t want the guy to think he had to get out of his truck and carry me back to my house or something so I got up and barely made it back to the house in time to lay down again on the other side of the door.
Once the dizziness passed I found that I could hardly move my left arm. It’s not easy to do things with only one functioning arm as I discovered in trying to do pretty much anything all evening.
Jake escaped again shortly after and I still can barely move my arm this morning. My hand is swollen and the fingers are all purple. The cuts and swelling around the eye look worse too, but it’s the severe lack of mobility in the elbow that worries me. Now I’m faced with having to visit a doctor, which is a daunting prospect since my health insurance has a $4000 deductible so is basically the same as no insurance at all.
4 hours at the walk-in clinic later I’m sitting here with my arm in a splint and a sling. I have to wait up to two days to hear from the orthopedist I was referred to just to get an appointment to find out if he can set the bone and put a cast on it, or if it requires surgery with a pin put in it. Sounds expensive. A lot of money spent each month (mainly by my employer) to pretend to have health insurance does not help much when it is actually needed.
I’ve heard an old saying that no good deed goes unpunished and at this point I may be inclined to agree.
Update: A visit to an orthopedist brought the news that my options are surgery or no surgery, neither of which will restore a full range of motion to that arm.
More about this story in The Things We Take for Granted and Not All Therapy is Mental.
Cruise Stories 
Ouch. and more Ouch. I’m so sorry. And I REALLY understand the health insurance woes. Health insurance is simply completely BROKEN. We have the same problem as you…. everything falls under the ‘deductible”, now. Things that in the past were paid for, now are not and we are getting bills. It’s awful. I hope your injuries are not severe. Keep us posted!
I’ll have to update the post when I see the orthopedist. I used to have good insurance through my husband’s job, but he retired early. I work for a much smaller company. If I make it into work this weekend (I work a 3 – 12’s weekend shift) I’ll have to hope there are some very small parts I can make one-handed.
While I was at the laundromat having a very mundane adventure (did a load of whites tonight — zzzzzzzzzzz) this evening, I checked my email on my iPhone and saw your post with this name. I got very excited and wondered, “Did she take up my suggestion and create me in a towel?!?!”
Now, I’ve just read your post. Cue the downbeat! I feel so terrible for you! What a horrible mishap! And now this health insurance nightmare! Make it stop! I truly hope you didn’t break anything and you heal fully and quickly. These sky high deductibles suck.
Hey, I thought you guys live in Florida. What’s Isabelle doing frolicking in snow?
I won’t be folding any towels for awhile. Good thing I have a couple animals already done. The doctor I saw today said my arm is broken, but he didn’t know if the specialist can just fix it or if he will have to insert a pin. In spite of the fact that I work in a sheet metal shop, I have allergies to some metals so a pin in my arm could really suck.
That’s not a current picture of Isabelle, just one of the few I have where she’s not in a costume for a facebook photo. We live in Washington State though, not Florida. The snow pic was at our old house, probably last winter or the one before.
This really sucks. I feel sooooooooooo sorry for you!
If only. Florida would be very fun for me to visit them in. Florida is the absolute most you could be wrong by (in the continental U.S.). Haha.
Florida would also be close to a lot of cruises.
Oh mom 😦 That really sucks, but on a slightly brighter note, at least it wasn’t your right arm. This is your first broken limb isn’t it?
Yup first ever. Guess I’d better drink more milk.
I was complaining when my deductables went from $20 for all doctors to $40 for regular doctors and $75 for specialists. $4000 is just crazy. I hope it doesn’t end up costing that much to fix your arm.
That sounds more like co-pays. I was hoping to never go to the doctor as long as I have this insurance. Guess that did not work out.
Holy !@#$%&! I am soooo sorry to hear that. And what a jerk that car driver was even though they did not hit you! I sure hope you did not go to work this weekend. Was your husband home at the time? Am I allowed to say his name on your blog?
He was in the house and had no clue. My work won’t let me back without a doctor’s release and the doctor did not want to give me one.
I am very sorry about your injury and especially since it happened when you were trying to keep someone else’s dog from being injured. I sure hope and pray that it will heal completely and that you will have full use of it again.
Thanks.