Misadventures in Medicine, A Cautionary Tale

The Unlucky Event

My Medical Misadventure started one early Sunday afternoon in February, not too long ago. My 15 year old daughter, Devi, and I had decided to go sledding. A foot of fresh snow was on the ground, conditions were perfect, and it was a beautiful sunny day. Anticipating the excitement of speeding down a hill with the sun in our eyes and the wind in our hair, we hopped in the car with our sleds and our dog (a standard poodle named Whiskey) and headed to the hill below the picturesque town library, which was a popular sledding spot in our small community. There were a few other families present with young children when we arrived.

We took turns sledding down the hill, as one of us had to stay with Fluff Nugget (one of our many ridiculous names for our dog). Whiskey is an energetic dynamo and would have loved to chase us down the hill, but I was afraid that he would get run over. On my third run down the slope, sitting on my cheap, hard, foam plastic sled, I picked up a bit too much speed on the short but fairly steep run, lost control of my sled and got turned around backwards. When I hit the dip at the bottom of the hill, I experienced an immediate very intense painful pop in my low back accompanied by a sharp stab of fear.

Up to this point in my life, I had been quite fortunate, and had never sustained a serious injury. The worst that had ever happened to me was a minor fracture of my right foot that occurred when a motorcyclist ran over it in India (that is another story). This time I knew right away that I had done something serious. In fact my first thought was "Oh, my God! That was bad!" Although I may have used a few more expletives.

Somehow, I was still seated on the sled when it came to a stop. The pain was like nothing I'd ever felt before. I managed to very carefully lower myself to the ground and roll onto my side. There was no moving further. Breathing was an agony. At this point I was facing the hillside and could see my daughter sitting at the top with our poodle, watching me. Using my powers of mindfulness, I told myself "Breathe. Just focus on breathing. Devi will eventually realize that there is something wrong and will come down to check. So just keep breathing." As Dory the fish famously said in Finding Nemo "Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...."

The next few minutes were quite surreal. My mind had split in two. One part focused on containing the pain and not letting it completely overwhelm me, while the other part was dispassionately observing the scene. There I was, lying alone in the snow, watching the tableau unfold in front of me. All of the lovely people kept on going about their doings, without seeming to realize that I was injured. "Huh, this is really weird," reflected one part of my brain. "They must think that lying on your side, unmoving in the cold snow, is normal behavior. Who knew?" I felt strangely invisible and somewhat concerned that one of the kiddies would plow down the hill on their sled and run into me. "Keep breathing," repeated the other part of my consciousness, like a mantra.

Eventually my daughter did figure it out and walked down the hill to me. Soon after she arrived, another woman came over and asked if I needed any assistance. Having another adult recognize that I was in distress was a huge relief. I felt visible again. I do not recall this woman's name. I was too focused on breathing at the time, to worry about remembering names. She did tell me that she was a former EMT and had worked ski patrol for many years. I will refer to her as Ms. Emtski. I told Ms. Emtski that my husband was out of town; he had literally just flown out the night before for a week long business trip to England. I asked her to call an ambulance, as there was no way I was getting up off the ground without being carried. I instructed my daughter to call a friend of ours to ask for a ride home for herself and the pooch. I kept words to a minimum; talking was difficult, as tends to be the case, when the mere act of breathing is a challenge.

Ms Emtski was helpful, calm, and collected as one would expect someone of her experience to be (Thank God I had someone competent there to assist me!). She duly called the ambulance, which did arrive, an agonizingly long 15 minutes later. Ms. Emtski remained by my side the whole time, for which I felt extremely grateful. The ambulance pulled into the library parking lot at the top of the slope, and then nothing.....happened.......for......two.....whole.....minutes. Now, two minutes might not sound like much, but I challenge you to sit and look at the clock for two minutes. Now imagine, that you are lying in the cold snow, have in fact been lying in the cold snow for about 20 minutes already, and you are in severe pain. Two minutes is a long time to wait for a paramedic to get out of an ambulance. Ms. Emtski wondered aloud, "What the hell is taking them so long?" Excellent Question, my brain agreed.