The Leg

I think I have put off writing about Jeff's leg injury because it's exhausting even thinking about it. But I'm already tired this morning (Kyla threw up in her bed at 1:00 and I couldn't fall back asleep), so why not go ahead and write about it now?

A couple of weeks ago, Jeff went with 94 other men on a motorcycle ride in Mexico. They are part of the Utah Trail Machine Association and drove 16 hours to Baja, Mexico, and were riding 1,000 miles in seven days (I don't know how many days they actually rode and how many were spent traveling, and it really doesn't matter. He left early Friday morning and got home late the next Friday night).

He didn't have any cell phone coverage for the week, but every couple of days I would get a text from a messaging service saying that everything was fine and the guys were great. When he got back, though, I heard a different story. On Tuesday, while he was riding, he didn't see where the road had washed out and ended up in an 8-foot ravine going 40 mph. He bailed off the bike at the last minute, pushing off so that he wouldn't crash right into the bike, and hit his leg on the handlebars before rolling off to the side.

He knew it was hurt, but didn't bleed hardly at all and he felt like it wasn't broken. Just a bone bruise, and he felt lucky that he could continue the ride (considering they were in the middle of nowhere, there wasn't really another choice). There was a lot of internal bleeding, though, because when he got home, his whole leg was purple. It looked like he had sprained his ankle really badly, but he said it really only hurt on the shin, where he had hit, and everything else was just the bruising spreading throughout his leg.

Four days after accident

He sat around on Saturday and Sunday, trying to get the swelling to go down, and once it finally did, it really started hurting him. He saw the doctor on Monday, and he could still barely walk on it. The doctor wanted him to have a CT scan to make sure that it wasn't broken, and that there was no damage to his knee. He also started him on antibiotics to avoid infection and had him wrap it during the day to help with the swelling. He had to work Monday-Thursday, so when he got home at night, he tried to keep it elevated and stay off of it as much as possible. The CT scan showed no break, just a large hematoma right on the shin bone, which was good. He wouldn't need surgery or anything major.

Let me just take a minute and say how hard this has been on me. I'm not complaining, just simply stating a fact. I thought I had done well to survive a whole week on my own, but I've ended up being (basically) a single mom for much longer. Because he has had to lay around and stay off his leg, I have had to do everything. Every diaper changed, meal made, dish washed, child put to bed, nose wiped, floor swept, bed made has been all me. And it's been HARD. And exhausting. The dinner-bedtime hours are chaotic, and I just try to do the best I can.

It's been hard on Jeff, too. He doesn't REALLY want to just sit there and watch me barely keep things together. I know that. But we also both know that he needs to get better, and that standing and walking are slowing down that process.

Okay, enough sob story. Back to the nitty gritty. By Thursday, 9 days after the accident, it wasn't that much better. Jeff felt like he needed to have it drained to help the healing process. The doctor (who is a family friend and works closely with Jeff's mom) said he needed to check with Nancy, and nothing got decided. Then on Saturday, when we were with Jeff's family, they sent a pic to the doc and he said it REALLY needed to be drained. So on Sunday, in Nancy's guest bedroom, he performed the "operation." He numbed a small part of Jeff's leg and drained a couple syringes of blood. Soon, though, it was too thick to come out via a needle, so he made a small incision, and using some large q-tips, and a lot of pressure (really hurting Jeff), he was able to drain a significant amount of old, clotted blood.

Twelve days after accident

Fortunately, there was no sign of infection, but they started him on another antibiotic to help avoid staph and MRSA. He was AGAIN told to keep off it as much as possible. We were sure that he would be feeling a lot better and that it would start healing quickly. And while it did look better, it just wasn't healing very fast at all. He had to work again Monday-Wednesday, so it was more of the same. He tried to stay off of it at work as much as possible, and at home, he would be on the couch for the night. The NCAA basketball tournament started yesterday, which has been a great distraction as he is determined to stay off of it until Monday.

                                                   Seventeen days after accident

The swelling is almost all gone and the wound around his leg is finally looking a lot better. It's crazy how long it has taken to get to this point. It has tried the patience of all of us, and I know that all of the prayers being said in his behalf have really helped. Thank you all so much (and those who would have been praying had you known)! I tend to sort of just turn inward when I need to, going into survival mode. At least now it seems like there's a light at the end of the tunnel and that soon Jeff will be back to full strength. And maybe he'll avoid his motorcycle for a while. We'll see...