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It happened in an instant.
Two legs colliding at the force of what a doctor would describe as hitting the dashboard of a car at 45 mph.
My leg was the loser.
The force of the collision spun me around and sent me to the ground. From the moment I hit the ground, I knew that something was wrong.
  
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I grabbed my right shin, made a couple of rolls to get my body off the soccer pitch and felt a sharp pain like nothing I had experienced before.
I knew my leg was broken.
This was the scene on May 13 when I suffered the worst injury of my life — a broken tibia. The injury was made about 20 minutes into a semifinal in the Sierra Vista Soccer League, something I played in early this year in an effort to get fit and have fun playing a sport I hadn’t played competitively since junior high.
I won’t be playing for a while more.
Today, however, I’m sharing my experiences over the past three months, which have been trying, frustrating, painful, awkward and, most of all, a giant learning experience.
The saying is that you don’t know about someone else’s life until you walk a mile in their shoes. Well, I’ve seen a different side of life and been able to walk in a different pair of shoes.
The injury
After being carried off the field by four other players, and then carried to my wife’s car by two men, including one with a shirt saying “I’m the doctor,” my wife, Celena, and I knew that my life was changing as we traveled to the Sierra Vista Regional Health Center’s emergency room. I knew I couldn’t do the things I was used to doing: driving myself home after long hours at the office, running and enjoying soccer and other sports with my two sons, and just being able to take a shower.
In the emergency room, I urged the nurses to hurry me to the back so I could lay down. It was a much more comfortable position than holding my knee to my chest as my foot dangled just above the wheel chair’s foot rest. Slight movements sent shooting pains through my leg.
I was a bit shook up, but had my senses. I just wanted to start getting better.
As I laid on a bed in the emergency room, my leg throbbed as I was wheeled for an X-ray and while my leg was braced and wrapped. The doctor told me the comparison I’ve already revealed to you — the collision I was just involved in as I charged to stop an opposing player and win the ball was equivalent to a 45 mph car wreck and me hitting the dashboard.
The crack in my leg — it didn’t break all the way through — was in the upper portion of my tibia, a few inches below my kneecap. The tibia is the front bone in the lower portion of a leg. It’s an important bone, given that it bears the weight of a person’s entire body.
I was given pain medication, which put me out pretty good at that point.
On my way home after a little more than two hours in the emergency room, I thought about all of the responsibilities I would not be able to fulfill, including helping put this newspaper out for a few days. The first person I called was my boss, Phil Vega. I called my city editor next. Mom and dad would be down the line.
That night I laid on the couch in my home, a position I’d get to know all too well. My mind raced to think about what just happened. A teammate came over to tell me we were in the championship game after an overtime struggle to a 1-0 victory that afternoon.
I was disappointed. I knew I wouldn’t be playing in the big game.
Next step
On that Monday morning, my wife and I started calling for the next doctor I would see — an orthopedist.
The two doctors in Sierra Vista were unavailable. One was out of the office. The other didn’t have appointments until May 31. This was frustrating, but probably not unlike what many other people face. I was going to have to find another way to get help.
I set an appointment with Dr. Anthony Arnold of Tucson for the next day, and I was looking forward to learning my next steps to getting better.
Tuesday came and I was in Tucson. My leg was still wrapped and braced just as it was when I left the emergency room.
When I got to Dr. Arnold’s waiting room, I looked around at the people sitting there. Many were elderly. Some had arm injuries. I saw only one foot injury, and it looked like an ankle injury.
Other people looked at me, probably wondering what had happened to me, just as I did with them. It was the first of many looks I’d get in the next three months.
As I sat, I hovered my left foot above the ground. I couldn’t let it touch the concrete floor. It was uncomfortable, but not like what I would feel later on.
I was called back and waited in a plainly decorated room. In Arnold’s office in north Tucson, the floors throughout are concrete and the hallways are wide and without any obstacles, which is much needed for people with crutches such as me.
The doctor was friendly and told me X-rays were first. After those were taken and he reviewed them, he told me the bad news: I was going to need a cast for three months, with the first six weeks in an above-the-knee-style cast so that my ankle and knee wouldn’t move, immobilizing the tibia and allowing it to heal.
It all made sense, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
I had been thinking six weeks, which would put the cast being taken off by the time of my July vacation.
Three months. Above-the-knee cast.
As the nurse in the doctor’s office told me to roll over on a table, told me to bend my leg so my foot was in the air and began to put on my blue cast, I felt pain but I was thinking more about the pain I was going to have with a cast on my leg.
No showers. No bending my knee. Pain medication, which I would quit taking only a week and half later. And there were many more thoughts going through my mind. It was hard not to let your mind wander.
My life had changed.
Home and beyond
My first dose of what I would face the next six weeks came as I sat in the back seat of my wife’s car. I sat so that my leg was extended across the entire back seat. I got another dose when I went to my in-laws’ house to pick up my sons. I couldn’t just sit down anywhere. I sat in an easy chair and put my leg on an ottoman.
The cast was odd, and I was getting used to it. It went up to above mid-thigh and right below my groin area, which was enough room to move it. My ankle couldn’t move. My knee felt like it was trapped. The hard-as-a-block blue cast was heavy, too.
I felt like a castaway.
What I didn’t expect was the workout my arms and upper body got when I used the crutches. My arms were sore. My stomach was even sore. My hands ached and became callused from the wear they received.
It was going to be a long three months.
My first days at work were awkward, too.
I couldn’t wear long pants at that point. I wore shorts, something my wife had to buy more of. I wanted to make sure I was still presentable.
I also had to put my leg up, which meant getting my office situated. I had another chair in which I put pillows and a folded blanket on so that I could raise my leg. Since I couldn’t put my legs underneath my desk, I had to have my keyboard on my lap and sit with my head looking to the right. It isn’t ergonomically correct, but it was good enough. It also meant that more people have seen the bottom of my right foot and toes than I ever thought would.
I had to rely on people to get me to work. My boss and the senior reporter of this newspaper, Bill Hess, both acted as morning chauffeurs, as did my wife. In the evening, my wife or one of the late-night editors, such as Pat Tuerff or Ted Morris, would take me home. I’m a pretty independent person, so these rides frustrated and embarrassed me. I appreciated their help, however.
At home, I slept on our living room couch. I tried the bed one night, but even with my leg propped on pillows, it didn’t feel right. I woke up feeling like my leg had been twisted. I also didn’t want to bother my wife’s sleep.
There was much more that I had to learn how to do, simple tasks that you just don’t think about.
Putting on my clothes was one. I switched my underwear choice from briefs to boxers because of the fit. I had to have something to sit or lay on so that I could put on my clothes.
Going to the bathroom became an adventure. I couldn’t sit on a normal toilet seat too well with a full leg cast. My wife, at my mother’s suggestion, bought a nifty booster seat that raised me up a few inches, enough to make it comfortable to sit.
Finally, getting clean was a challenge. I used two wash rags to clean my body. One I used to wet and put soap on to lather up. The second I used to rinse my body, wiping off all the soap I could. I used a sink to clean my hair. I had the ability to bend over on one leg while the other was raised behind me, wet my hair, stand upright again, put shampoo in my locks and then bend over again to wash out the soap. It was like a bathroom ballet, but it worked.
My biggest fear when washing was that I’d get the cast wet. With the full leg cast, I usually put a towel over the top so that any water that would drip down wouldn’t get on the cast.
Another fear I had during my three months was blood clots — this came from a reader’s comment to me about her time in a cast, which sent me on a WebMD.com expedition to learn more about a broken tibia (I found out mine wasn’t too bad). Beyond that, my fears were that my leg wasn’t healing right, that I might fall, that my co-workers were tired of seeing me hobble around, and that my wife would lose her patience all together.
All of these, so far, have been untrue. But the mind can play tricks on you. I had only one really depressing night about four weeks into my ordeal, one in which I felt pretty worthless. I wandered out the back door of my home with only my soccer shorts on and looked into a star-filled June sky that had a hint of a breeze.
Was this ever going to end?
Second cast
On June 26, Paris Hilton got out of jail in California.
I gained some freedom, too.
Dr. Arnold told me he felt the healing was headed in the right direction and that I would be getting a cast that was below my knee, allowing me some freedom of movement. I also would get a sandal-like shoe to put onto the bottom of the cast. This could be removed, but, when on, it would allow me to start putting some weight down.
The boot-like cast was nice. But it brought new feelings. First, my knee felt like it needed to be unlocked. It was tight and ached. The pain was from the lack of movement for six weeks. There was nothing I could do about this except to let it work itself out, which it did in about a week.
The second was that I could start standing on my foot. Though it wasn’t a great deal of weight, it was enough that you could feel soreness.
My leg muscles, too, had atrophied, and this meant I had to start gaining back some of the muscle tone I had lost. This may be one of the toughest challenges when you have a cast on for a long period of time. Gaining muscle strength is important to recovery.
I was glad, however, that I was in a boot-style cast. I was headed to Kansas City, Mo., for a week to attend my cousin’s wedding and enjoy a place that is important to me. As I kid, I spent some summers there with my grandparents.
The flight to Kansas City wasn’t too hard. It would have been a nightmare in the above-the-knee cast. I was able to bend my knee, so sitting in a normal seat was no problem. I also got to the front of the flight line, being one of the first to board. I was able to sit in the first row on a Southwest Airlines flight, which had more leg room. Crutches, I learned, are stored much like everything else in the cabin — in the overhead compartment.
I learned, too, that wet floors are not good for people walking on crutches. At the airport in Kansas City, a wet floor in a bathroom caused me to lose my footing. I caught myself, but it was a quickly learned lesson.
The next day — the Fourth of July — I had a big day planned. At noon I was to be at Arrowhead Stadium to see the Kansas City Wizards play D.C. United in my first Major League Soccer game. I wanted to take my sons.
That night, I had 21 tickets for the Kansas City Royals game against the Seattle Mariners. My family members were meeting up for a fun night.
Stadiums are not made for people with crutches. At Arrowhead Stadium, which is also home to the Kansas City Chiefs professional football team, there wasn’t an easy way to get down at the entrance I went through. I had to walk down the ramps, and, with our seats at midfield on a muggy, hot afternoon, I had to cruise down 25 rows of stairs, taking each one slowly, steadily and carefully. You really have to think about each move when you’re doing that.
On the way out, we found an elevator, which ultimately took us through the Chiefs’ offices and past the Super Bowl IV trophy, something I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t taken the back door.
That evening, mid-summer rains rolled into western Missouri and I had to be ready for the baseball game. I had brought a couple of garbage bags just for this situation, so I wrapped up my leg in a bag, tied it off near my knee and was able to go. As I headed toward the stadium, one of the Royals employees in the parking lot asked if I wanted a ride into the stadium. I didn’t need it then, but appreciated the gesture, something I didn’t get earlier in the day.
The game went well, though the fireworks fizzled. I took the garbage bag off by the end of the first inning, and the cool evening felt good on my foot.
The rest of the week went well, too. There were challenges all of the time, such as where to put my crutches in restaurants, getting around places such as Crown Center (a three-story mall) in downtown Kansas City, and getting to watch everyone else do fun things at Science City at Union Station.
The flight home was smooth, and I was glad to be back in the desert. The humidity had left my leg feeling slick and sticky. Nothing like a dry heat.
The final sports stadium of my trip was Chase Field in Phoenix. The Diamondbacks employees are well-trained for the disabled, and I found this out firsthand. About 10 seconds after I got out of a car just outside the east entrance, a Diamondbacks employee asked if I needed help getting into the stadium. I had gone this far and didn’t need it. I said thanks, but no thanks.
At an elevator to go up to our seats, my family met former Chicago Cubs and Diamondbacks first baseman Mark Grace, who is now a television color analyst. I wished I had a Sharpie right then. I hadn’t let anyone sign my cast and would have loved him to put his autograph there.
And then to end the evening, a Diamondbacks employee parted a sea of intoxicated fans and got my family and I to the front of the elevator line.
Not bad for having a broken leg.
End of the road
As time went on, my knee felt more normal and the boot-style cast was a welcome addition. I could sit at my desk at work like a normal person, and my toes weren’t in people’s faces. I could sit at the dinner table like a normal person.
I still couldn’t carry my dinner to the table, however. And I still found that bottled and packaged goods were best for getting around. A backpack was a necessity. A book is a good friend. And an iPod with 1,000 songs is nice to have when you get bored and can’t get around.
And then there were the stories I heard, and I heard many. It seems that when you have a cast, everyone wants to tell you their story. They want to tell you about the big game they were in and got their leg broken so that badly that it could be heard several fields away. They want to tell you about how they put acorns in their cast to help scratch the itches underneath the hard shell, and how the doctor found the acorns when the cast was cut open. They just want to share their stories with you.
There’s, in a sense, a brotherhood of those who suffered these mostly minor wounds. Mine was a good story: A playoff game and a making a play to stop another player from trying to move upfield. I always got positive reaction when I told my tale.
But the stories only carry you so far. You have to keep a positive attitude and celebrate each little victory.
My cast came off July 31. It was another victory. My mother-in-law took me to my appointment, and we celebrated with a Mexican meal for lunch. It was a happy moment.
What came in the next couple of weeks was learning to do some tasks over and deal with a swollen leg, one still mending itself. It will take time before I’m back up to my soccer-playing self, even if my kids want me to kick the ball right now.
In the first days after my cast was off, I learned again that I wasn’t as good as new just yet. My ankle swelled up. My ankle was sore. And an area that had been rubbed by the cast for several weeks had worn the hair off my leg and stiffened up the muscles.
The skin on the bottom of my foot had become cracked through 12 weeks of having a cast. That led to peeling skin, the kind like you have when you have a blister. It wasn’t easy, at first, to put on a sock.
I also got to feel where my break was for the first time. I felt the dip in my tibia, another sporting wound I wear on that leg.
I wanted to start putting more weight on my leg. To do so, I’m having to continue to build up muscle. I’m having to tell my mind I can put weight on that leg. You have to trust that your leg is healed enough, and to do so it seems you have to heal your mind.
While I’m still using crutches, I have started to try and do some of the things I did before I was in a cast. I sleep in my bed again. I have tried to walk, though it has caused soreness and comes in a very short burst. And I’ve put a shoe on, trying to even out the pairs where my left foot side got almost three months more wear than the other. I’m wearing pants again. I’m able to wash my toes.
An instant can change a life. I appreciate what I have, including the family, friends and co-workers who showed support for me. I realized that I must trust others if I was going to get better.
Beyond healing my leg, I’ve healed my spirit to know that I can overcome physical obstacles. It makes me better appreciate those who have to do so every day.
HERALD/REVIEW Managing Editor Keith J. Allen can be reached at 515-4610 or by e-mail at keith.allen@svherald.com.
SV Resident wrote on Aug 20, 2007 1:36 PM: