Alternative Title: I ruined the weekend by breaking my elbow.
Ha.
Theo and I had the opportunity to get away for the weekend while Theo’s parents stayed with the kids. It is no small feat staying with our four for a whole weekend, so we are so thankful whenever we can make this happen (usually about every other year or so).
We decided to take FULL advantage of the time away, and both Theo and I skipped work on Thursday in order to start our weekend a little early. We also needed to be back before church on Sunday morning, since it was Easter Sunday. So we spent Thursday-Sunday morning just hanging out as a couple. We stuck pretty close to home and just booked a cutie little Airbnb in downtown Cincinnati.
We hemmed and hawed for a while about what we should DO on our weekend- as you all know, we like to stay busy. But we never ended up planning or booking anything, and in hindsight I’m so glad that the only thing on our schedule for the weekend was REST. I didn’t know how badly we would need that rest, or how much pain I would be in from breaking my elbow.
Anyways. Thursday we left our house around 11 and headed to nearby Caesars creek. I have always wanted to do the perimeter trail (about a 13 mile loop around the perimeter of Caesars Creek), but since it would require a whole day of childcare, that just hadn’t happened…until now!
I wrote a whole post on our hike that day, but here are the cliff notes: hiked 12 miles in about 5 hours. Fell in mile 1 and broke my elbow, but walked 11 more miles because I was in denial that it was broken. It was the most GORGEOUS day and will always be a favorite memory.
We finished our hike, grabbed some takeout Chipotle for dinner, got all unloaded at the Airbnb, showered all the mud and grime off, and then settled on the couch to watch TV and eat our dinner. At this point, I was in SO MUCH PAIN. I could not move my arm at all, and some swelling had set in. We determined that I probably needed to see a doctor, but decided to just wait until the next day.
I slept so horribly that first night. My arm was hurting so bad, and there was no comfortable position to relieve the pain. By the time morning came, I was in tears. I couldn’t dress or undress myself, couldn’t go to the bathroom by myself, couldn’t sit up by myself- it was bad. I just laid in bed and read my book while Theo made us some breakfast.
Now, we had to make a choice about where we wanted to see a doctor. We could find the nearest urgent care in Cincinnati and just go there, but we figured that if it was broken, Urgent Care would just send us to an orthopedic doctor. We figured we should probably skip the urgent care and see if we could just get in with an ortho. The other complication is that there are several large hospital “networks” around us. There is Premier Health and Kettering Health and then whatever the Cincinnati health network is. All the health networks seem to have some kind of rivalry with one another, and they don’t really seem to like crossing patients. So, for example- if I went to a Cincinnati Urgent Care, then went to a Kettering Health orthopedic doctor, then went to a Premier hospital for a surgery, none of the information or recommendations would transfer over within the system without a little (or a lot!) of hassle. Instead, they like you to pick one network and just stick with it.
P.S. I’m sure that someone working in these medical systems/networks would say that factually it’s not true that they don’t cross patients/information, etc. But my *experience* has been that they like to keep patients in one network and there IS a hidden rivalry going on.
Theo called around and found an orthopedic urgent care back in Dayton that was within our preferred network (the one that already has all of our medical records, etc). So we drove the hour back to Dayton and headed in for an x-ray.
Yup- sure enough. Broken. And apparently elbow breaks are never easy, so the doctor ordered a CT scan STAT. It was a Friday afternoon, so we were racing against the weekend clock.
Now we had to call scheduling and try to get in for a CT scan, which seems like a small task but ended up taking forever. We wanted to call around to some other places to see if they had any sooner openings for a cheaper price. We also had to pick up a sling and prescriptions at CVS, but the one CVS we went to didn’t have it, so we had drive 30 mins away to look at a different CVS that said it was in stock. Anyways- this was all overwhelming to me and I was in a good amount of pain AND I was so annoyed that this was how we were spending our one kid free weekend that we get every couple of years. While Theo was picking up CVS stuff, I popped into Michael’s for some thread therapy. I needed new colors to start my next project, and the way these are all organized and color coded just uplifted my spirits. Honestly it wouldn’t take much to uplift my spirits at this point- I was feeling pretty down.
We finally got a CT scan scheduled for 2:30, and it was about noon by this point. So we grabbed some lunch and then browsed Half Price Books before driving 30 minutes back to downtown Dayton for my CT scan at the main hospital.
Note- we try to put phones away while eating and when we are together on weekends like this, but it felt like our whole weekend was ruined and we were trying to schedule scans, figure out if I may need surgery, update family, etc. I kept this picture because it felt real to the situation 🙁
I got my CT scan- painless and quick and they told me they would hope to have the results sent over by the end of the day. We really weren’t sure what this would mean- would I be getting a call to have surgery? Would they need to put a cast on? We didn’t want to drive all the way back to Cincinnati only to find out that they needed me in Dayton, so we just decided to go to the movies and hope they called me by the end of the day.
We watched Project Hail Mary which I’m convinced is the LONGEST movie I’ve ever seen in my life. It wasn’t bad…but it just kept going on and on and on. This already felt like the longest day ever, and I was in SO MUCH PAIN, so it made my brain spin that we spent like 4 entire hours in the movie theatre. Anyways- cute movie- but I was so down in the dumps that it didn’t really matter what the movie was about.
By the time the movie was over, I had fully accepted the fact that we were not getting a phone call that day, and I would just have to wait until Monday to find out what was up with my elbow. I was in so much pain by that point that I really couldn’t even eat, and the hour long drive back to Cincinnati was very painful. I mostly just cried the whole time. What a delightful getaway weekend so far, huh?
Thankfully, I slept so much better that night. I was able to find a position to put my arm in that didn’t hurt my elbow, and that was actually comfortable for sleeping. The melatonin I took was also helpful 🙂
We woke up to a BEAUTIFUL day on Saturday. We opted to just have a slow morning at the Airbnb, and then left for a walk around Cincinnati. We were so close to the downtown area that we could just walk to a nearby park and then walk up and down a fun street with lots of shops and restaurants.
We sat at a park and just read our books quietly, while also getting in on some good people watching action.
We got up and walked all the way to Findlay Market- but it was so crowded and I was in a significant amount of pain and afraid of being bumped into, so we quickly abandoned that plan and decided to grab some lunch instead.
We walked back to the Airbnb – and man! I already had over 10,000 steps, even though it didn’t feel like we had really done all that much walking. I’m not a city girl, but I really do miss the opportunity for getting steps in (living in the country means that I don’t even have neighborhood sidewalks to walk on!)
We headed back to the Airbnb and literally did nothing for the rest of the afternoon. Theo watched an action movie, and I read most of a book. It seems SO boring, but it is truly exactly what we needed after such a stressful year and with my broken elbow. We debated trying to book a river cruise for dinner, but neither of us was feeling it and we just opted to walk back downtown and grab some dinner at a restaurant.
The next morning we drove the hour back to our house where the kids had gotten me some sweet gifts and a feel better balloon. That meant so much to me!
It was Easter Sunday, so we got dressed quickly and then headed out to church!
And that was a wrap on our weekend away! Honestly, it wasn’t all bad. We are both notoriously bad at NOT resting, so I think breaking my elbow really forced us to do nothing for two days. At the same time, it was discouraging to be in so much pain! Here’s to hoping our next getaway weekend is a little bit more fun haha!