Daily Archives: July 17, 2003

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Two broken arms at the same time

Yesterday, André managed to trip over something and to fall in such a way that he broke both his arms. Yes, you read that right. He got up after the fall and thought he was fine, but fainted a few minutes later and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. The x-rayed his arms and discovered a crack in the right forearm bone (I don’t know which of the two) and that a piece of the left forearm bone had snapped off. He got casts on both arms right up to the shoulders, and he also got a bed in the hospital. This morning, the left arm was operated on. The doctors screwed the bone back together, and everything went alright. He will have to stay at the hospital until at least Monday, but at least he’ll lose the cast on his left arm in about a week because the screw will hold the bone together. The other arm will probably have to stay in the cast for two weeks.

I spent yesterday evening and much of this afternoon in the hospital. His surgery was around 8 am and went fine, and André was in good spirits when I arrived at the hospital at 2 pm. I think the biggest problem is that he can’t use his arms, so someone needs to help him with everything, or almost everything. It’s going to be fun when he gets to come home next week…

And by the way, I sort of know what he is going through at the moment – because I managed to break both my arms at the same time as well. It happened at school, when I was 13, and it was not funny. I had casts from my hands to just under the elbows for four weeks, and it took me about a week to learn how to eat and dress myself. But I was lucky because my casts left my elbows free so I was able to move my arms quite well. I guess that when André tries to eat something, he’s going to miss his mouth because he can’t bend the arm at the elbow.

But even if I have to feed him, it will be good to have him back home.

P.S.: If you want to reach him, please send email to my address. He won’t be able to check his accounts anytime soon.