Wednesday, November 2, 2011

11-02-2011, the day we came home from the hospital.


As J spent the night in terrible pain in the hospital, I spent the night replaying the accident in my mind (or my idea of the accident) over and over.  By the morning I realized I was experiencing post-traumatic stress, from an accident that happened when I wasn't even present.


Oonagh and I went to the hospital early, and we started to finally relax a bit when Jeremiah invited her up onto the bed. At first she was too nervous to get up with him. She allowed herself to be coaxed onto the bed, then spent the morning watching T.V. and eating chips between Dad's broken-hip leg and his road-rash leg.


I was feeling overwhelmed by the idea that I was going to be the bandage changer when we came home, and wanted to be sure I'd remember what needed to be done. In hope that photographs would somehow help prepare me for this, I started taking pictures.


The yellow bandage-looking stuff is Xeroform. It's gauze saturated in petroleum jelly and some sort of antimicrobial substance. The full box they sold us at the pharmacy looked like way more than we would ever need, but took it home anyhow.


Over the xeroform, the leg wound took seven 2x3 nonstick pads to cover.

I cried a lot on this day, or at least I felt like crying all day long. The hardest moment came when it was time to move Jeremiah from the car upstairs into the house. He and the physical therapist had worked out that he would use his crutches to come up the flight of stairs from the garage. The crutches were slightly too long, so I watched helplessly from the top of the stairs as he nearly toppled backward when he tackled the first step. We re-grouped, and used the rental wheelchair instead to get him up the hill from the garage to the front door.


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