Well, it starts out "not art" at least----

[Ellen Easton]

To start out with, I fell down and hurt myself earlier in April. It's the worst pain I've ever had in my life including 4 child births. I broke my left femur. Just sheared the ball right off my left femur in the blink of an eye and slick as anything. I pray I never, ever, ever, EVER suffer anything like that again or even remotely like it. Tomorrow I go for my first doctor check-up and get this nasty, itchy bandage off. I can't wait for that. Then more OT and PT for awhile and hopefully getting back to art and my reviews for Amazon and the usual happy things I had been planning to do for the nice weather.

So that's what I've been up to (or maybe down for is a better term.) I've earned some really nice things for my Amazon reviews and the day I broke my femur or the day after (I kind of forget at this point) I advanced to the Gold level. I've gotten some really nice new art supplies to try and to review and to keep. On my own I've continued trying out cotton art paper.

We're going to put in a big garden this year, so that's exciting. Tomorrow I think I'm going to quit sleeping in my electric recliner and move back into my own room where I'm going to be using some of my new review items to decorate my room and make it into a nice, meditative, happy space. Of course, I'll do the supervising while others do the work but you get the idea. lol

 

[Donna T]

Oh my gosh Ellen I'm so sorry to hear about your fall! I hope your doctor is pleased with your progress tomorrow and you can get on with your exercises. They will probably hurt at first but it will all be worth it by the time you finish. A big garden and some new art supplies to play with sound good to me. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

 

[john]

Ouch! Yes, speedy recovery Ellen. Glad you have something to look forward to now.

 

[Hermes2020]

My best wishes to you. I hope your doctor will be pleased with your progress.

 

[Artyczar]

Sorry to hear Ellen. Please take good care of yourself and heal up soon.

 

[PaintBoss]

Oh no Ellen. So sorry to hear that. Glad you’re up and on the mend now though. I think it’s a good idea to get your bedroom ready and a lovely space to rest. Maybe you can do some art while resting that leg. It’s a bad break. All I know is I have femoral nerve problems and it is “jump off the building” type pain, that painkillers don’t help. And it’s all around that area that you hurt. I sure hope you don’t have that with whatever damage was done. Falls are incredibly painful. Now that I’m older I have discovered that, even without breaking a bone. So I can just imagine how awful that was. Was someone around when you did that? Or did you have your phone right near you to get help? I don’t like the idea that you may have been laying on the floor for a while in pain waiting for someone to notice you. Well, I also know you’re tough so you’ll do your exercises and I hear from everyone that it may hurt doing physiotherapy, but it makes all the difference in healing and what you get motion you get back. One nice thing is you can still do a lot of your reviews even with a broken bone. I think it’s excellent that you’ve reached gold star status. I like that you get all those things for free and I know you do a great job of describing items. I always find descriptive honest reviews so helpful on Amazon.
Is your family putting in a big vegetable garden? You must have to do a lot to keep the animals out. With the price of groceries these days it’s wise if you’re able to do it. I have a common backyard for the landscapers to cut everyone’s grass and I put out potted items a few years ago and we were really looking forward to the harvest. But every time something was just ready to be picked the landscapers would grab it and eat it! We would see it on camera. It wasn’t a lot, but we never got one bite out of our plants.
Anyways, I hope they’re keeping you comfortable as you heal. It’s great that you’ve got such a good family there that watch out and help you out when you need it. That’s a real blessing.

 

[Terri]

Glad you're on the mend, Ellen! New art supplies and planning a garden are great ways to get back to living your life after this accident. Take care of yourself!

 

[Ellen Easton]

Well, the doctor visit went well yesterday. I can now sleep like a normal person (pretty much) in my own bed. However, that long round trip into the valley and back took its toll on my poor hip. He said it will take about a year to regain all the muscle tone but that I'm doing well. I go back in 4 weeks for x-rays. I can use two canes or a walker or whatever I choose or even no assist, but be careful not to fall again. Once the pain simmers down after the round trip, then I'll be a happy camper.

Keeping the animals out of the garden will be a challenge. We're doing some raised beds and some buried bunny deflecting wire with some tall deer wire and probably some bird netting that I can think of. It would be nice to do some marionberries and raspberries but that would be silly considering there are bears who raid the wild blackberry patches every year. We'll see what we can produce. No use even thinking about chickens. Eggs are ten dollars a dozen at the store up here so I wish we could do that for eggs but no chance.

My family is really awesome about looking after what I need. I try to fend for myself all I can but they're really good about stepping in when I need it. Aside from the resulting painful results of the long round trip, I enjoyed spending the time with them and we had Arby's on the way home. I haven't had that in years. The drive back is beautiful because there's a gorgeous view of snow-covered Diamond Peak over the river with the sun shining on it for most of the way up. It's one of our year-round snow-covered mountains here in Oregon. It was worth the pain, but I hope tomorrow is more comfortable.

Christine, I sure know what you mean about "jumping off the roof" pain. That's exactly it.

 

[Ellen Easton]

Oh no Ellen. So sorry to hear that. Glad you’re up and on the mend now though. I think it’s a good idea to get your bedroom ready and a lovely space to rest. Maybe you can do some art while resting that leg. It’s a bad break. All I know is I have femoral nerve problems and it is “jump off the building” type pain, that painkillers don’t help. And it’s all around that area that you hurt. I sure hope you don’t have that with whatever damage was done. Falls are incredibly painful. Now that I’m older I have discovered that, even without breaking a bone. So I can just imagine how awful that was. Was someone around when you did that? Or did you have your phone right near you to get help? I don’t like the idea that you may have been laying on the floor for a while in pain waiting for someone to notice you. Well, I also know you’re tough so you’ll do your exercises and I hear from everyone that it may hurt doing physiotherapy, but it makes all the difference in healing and what you get motion you get back. One nice thing is you can still do a lot of your reviews even with a broken bone. I think it’s excellent that you’ve reached gold star status. I like that you get all those things for free and I know you do a great job of describing items. I always find descriptive honest reviews so helpful on Amazon.
Is your family putting in a big vegetable garden? You must have to do a lot to keep the animals out. With the price of groceries these days it’s wise if you’re able to do it. I have a common backyard for the landscapers to cut everyone’s grass and I put out potted items a few years ago and we were really looking forward to the harvest. But every time something was just ready to be picked the landscapers would grab it and eat it! We would see it on camera. It wasn’t a lot, but we never got one bite out of our plants.
Anyways, I hope they’re keeping you comfortable as you heal. It’s great that you’ve got such a good family there that watch out and help you out when you need it. That’s a real blessing.

Nobody was around but me right then. I had decided to just have a TV dinner rather than put my daughter to the task of cooking so I was on my way to the microwave from the fridge to put the dinner in for myself. My phone was on the charger across the kitchen and I landed too far away to reach it. I thought I might scoot to a window or door but I couldn't even scoot an inch. I finally figured out how to get the broom over where I could reach it and I used that to fish the phone off the charger onto the floor and then over to where I could reach it. It had enough charge in it that I could text my daughter to call 911 because I thought I broke my hip. Of course, all this took awhile and a lot of pain and figuring things out and then time for messages to arrive and medics to get there and for them to figure out how to get me out of here the best and most efficient way. I was touched that my son came over to help carry me to the ambulance, bless him.

 

[PaintBoss]

I’m glad you’re able to reach the phone in some way! I can imagine the excruciating pain you would’ve been experiencing. I have terrible hip and pelvic and bone problems from all the steroids -osteoarthritis and severe osteoporosis. And that was the first two years on steroids. It’s been eight years in. And I had strong bones and no pain or problems until I had to go on the steroid for the asthma. I was warned. So I have not even broke a hip and deal with the pain, and I don’t even wanna think of the pain you were in with that break. Every move is a problem. So how long were you at the hospital for? I’m very glad thankful you have such good people/family around because you need a lot of help with that kind of injury and recovery. I think you had said they were going to build an emergency health clinic or something in the area but that isn’t built yet right? Imagine it was a bit of a distance to get to the hospital. I’m glad you’re OK now. You have to be so careful.

 

[Ellen Easton]

It's 50 miles one way down the mountain to the hospital. I don't exactly remember how long the hospital stay was but I think it was only three or four days till I was transferred to rehab for two weeks.

No, there's no emergency clinic or anything being built up here. We have a tiny clinic run by nurses and a physician assistant or two is all. My daughter gets angry with me when I say so, but we do need a physician here to at least supervise the clinic in my opinion. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants are good and do have their place but they're definitely quite a far cry from being a doctor in many ways.

Just the 100 mile round trip to see the doctor on the 30th gave me three days or so of pain that made it difficult to put any weight on my leg or get good sleep. I have to go again for x-rays on the 30th of May, so I hope that doesn't give the same result. One good result of my accident is that at least I now have a primary care physician rather than just the tiny clinic nurses here. Also, I now have traveling therapists for PT and OT and I found out I can get Meals on Wheels from their outlet up here.

 

[PaintBoss]

That is good news, indeed. It’s wonderful they have those services that go all the way to where you are. Maybe I got the clinic confused with an airport. I remember you saying they had a plan to build something up there that was going to make things easier in the next few years.
That is a long trip to a hospital. But I’m really glad you’ve got a doctor now. You’re right the nurses can only do so much. I find long car rides very difficult to do as well.