Basketball

Beau has always loved basketball. He played through high school, and would play whenever he got the chance at church. Once we were married, he didn't get to play as often as he used to, or as often as he would like. Whenever he would go play at church I would always tell him to have fun and don't get hurt. He said that I have jinxed him, because he never got injured in all those years of playing prior to being married, and since he was married he has been injured several times. He has had a dislocated shoulder, a punctured lip, a broken rib, and then the mother of all his injuries, an open dislocation.

Just days after taking the boys on their campout, he was going to play church basketball "one last time" before the semester got too busy. After teaching his Missionary Preparation Class at the church, he changed clothes, and began playing. He had been playing basketball pretty reguarly at the church since the beginning of the year, which is where he received his broken rib, and punctured lip. Little did he know that tonight would be the grand finale. These are his words, as posted on Facebook, describing what happened:

 

Okay, so the story is that I was defending a guy on a fast break. I jumped to block his shot while at a pretty good pace and landed on somebody's foot. I looked down and saw my foot inverted, and it wasn't going straight. I asked the guys on the court to pop it back into place...nobody took the offer, so I reached down and gave it a tug and it slid right back to where it should have been. I didn't even notice that a bone was sticking out when I did it (everything went by pretty quickly). It turns out I lined the bones back up, but a flap of torn skin folded between the fibula and talus. No broken bones which threw the docs for a loop. The only two times this injury was really painful were when it was inverted, and after the ER doc put plaster on it (lumpy casts don't feel all that great, but the hydromorphone did). After the ortho doc took the cast off, and performed an irrigation and debridement with a delayed primary intention closure it felt pretty good. Already putting weight on it and hobbling around. Should be good in a couple of weeks.





I had gone to bed early that night, which I normally do. My phone rings about 10:30, and it's our Bishop who also happens to be our Home Teacher. He tells me that Beau broke his leg playing basketball, and ambulance is on its way to pick him up. My mind instantly conjures up a broken femur, for some reason. I'm able to talk to Beau for a minute, and he tells me that it's his ankle. He hangs up quickly, because the pain is beginning to set in. I'm sort of in the dark the rest of the night. I had a few people offer to come stay the night so I could go to the hospital, but I decline. Then I felt bad the rest of the night and didn't get any sleep because I'm too worried about what's going on. I knew he was in good hands, because our Bishop and another member of the Bishopric were going to administer a blessing, and Bishop is an nurse anesthetist who stuck around to dope Beau up with painkillers.

The next morning I dropped the kids off at a friend's house and went to the hospital. Poor Beau, he looked so miserable. He said that he hated basketball, and was never going to play ever again. I should have gotten that in writing. He spent the rest of the day in the hospital, and had another surgery to close up the wound later that evening. He came home the following afternoon. He hung out in a dazed and confused state for the next few days while he tried to study for his first test. Thankfully, a fellow student lives around the corner and was able to take him to and from school for a few weeks until he was able to drive on his own.

This is how Beau would spend his hours at home. He's hiding his face in shame. :)

Three days after his surgery, he was able to take off the bandage. This is what it looked like. It progressively looked worse before it started looking better.

About a month after the injury. Still swollen.

Oh, might I add that two weeks after the injury he went to have the stitches removed. Can you guess what he was doing just hours after having the stitches removed from his BASKETBALL injury? He was hobbling around the basketball court with a walking boot on, shooting hoops with his boys. I should have taken a camera!