The Fall and Break
I wanted to record my journey just like many others who have shared their stories online about their humerus fracture recovery. I decided to write one myself as a way to share my story to those confused/worried and frustrated souls (Like I was…and still am), and hopefully to keep me motivated in getting my arm back into prime shape again.
This is my Humerus Story.
I broke my arm early March of 2018…while I was snowboarding, sigh.
Typical story: tripped going down a run that I’ve been down before. Dove forward and I guess landed on my left arm first and ended up with my head facing back up the mountain, on my stomach, with my hands spayed out. At first I had thought maybe I dislocated my shoulder, but I knew it was more than that when I realized I couldn’t move my arm at all.
It was my first time breaking a bone in my 24-years of life, and you really can’t describe how this feels until it happens to you. As I was laying there, I was trying to move my left arm to get myself up but couldn’t. I felt a lot of pins/needles/pain, and could still feel my fingers inside of my mitten, I just couldn’t move it. I laid there until help arrived. I was wrapped up and put on a toboggan and I got driven down the hill by a snowmobile.
During that 2–3 minute ride I was so scared, silly enough to say I had thought I could lose my arm because of this! I went with my friends, but when we went down the hill I had gone last, so no one knew what happened. I was able to contact them afterwards and met me at the hospital. During the ambulance ride, the paramedic gave me 1g of tylenol…and it seemed to suffice me, surprisingly.
In the ER, the ortho tech put me in the coaptation splint and sent me for an x-ray. After doing what anybody would do after they fractured something — googling up fractures — my fracture looked.. contained..ish?
But prior to the world of google, after I saw my x-ray I thought this was so so bad!!! I thought I would need surgery, pins, plates, etc.
Nobody told me the type of fracture I had to me, but with my amateur knowledge and power of google, I’m going guess that it’s a mid-shaft spiral wedge fracture.
They discharged me and gave me my papers and copy of the xray on a CD, and told me to go back to Toronto to see the Orthopaedic Surgeon. The doctor prescribed me some Hydromorphone for pain. After coming back to Toronto, I waited in the ER of a hospital in downtown to get a referral for the next (Monday) morning.
