Yesterday I had surgery on the arm I broke a year ago, because it hadn’t healed properly. The operation was fine; the bone surgeon rebroke my arm and attached a titanium strip to position it perfectly.
I was at home afterward, sipping some soup, when I realized suddenly that my pants were damp. This is unusual for me, at least in the middle of the day. Further investigation revealed that my sling, holding my arm against my belly, was literally pooling with blood. From my navel to the top of my thighs, my front was one big bloodstain.
I think it’s fair to say that this may have been the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. I got to stride into the ER with a flourish and declaim, “I’m bleeding all over the place.” They were suitably impressed, and I only had to wait half an hour.
The incision was clean, and the ER doctor couldn’t determine where the blood was coming from. He did tell me, “we have a saying – all bleeding eventually stops,” which I think was meant to be comforting. They swaddled me in warm blankets and rewrapped my arm tightly. They kept me a few hours for observation, to make sure my life wasn’t ebbing away, and then they sent me home.
The story ends anticlimactically, I’m afraid. I woke up alive this morning, I don’t seem to be bleeding, and my pants are dry.
The nerve-block anesthetic was a story in itself. It’s like a novocain shot to the collarbone, and it leaves the arm with no feeling at all. I was cradling the deadened arm on my chest as they wheeled me into the OR, and chatting with the nurse on my other side, and I didn’t even realize that the other nurse had extended my arm. The fascinating aspect was that I still had a phantom sensation that my arm was on my chest. It’s as if my brain had seen my arm on my chest, and since it hadn’t felt the arm move, my brain decided that the arm must still be there.
Damn, son! When you said your pants were damp, I was worried that they cut a bladder nerve or something like that. Blood is easier to contain than pee. I think. And it doesn’t smell as bad.