The Occasional Solipsist

So last night was Superwife and I's fifth wedding anniversary. But I didn't spend it with Superwife. I spent it at the hospital instead, waiting for her brother to come out of surgery, hoping that he would be able to avoid having his leg amputated.

Let me back up a bit.

Superwife's brother (Superbrother-in-law?) got into a very bad motorcycle accident when a deer jumped out in front of him on the highway two nights ago. He flew over the handlebars of his bike when he braked to avoid the collision and bounced his way into a ditch about 50 yards away.

Deer, as it turns out, have become quite the nuisance around here these days, something to do with a lack of deer hunt tags causing a population explosion. We've seen hundreds ourselves on or right beside the roads since the move but we haven't had any close calls.

Here's the laundry list of the poor guy's hurts: Broken femur, broken pelvis, two broken knees, broken fibula, an uncountable number of bruises and a lot of missing skin.

For reasons that will be excellent grounds for a forthcoming lawsuit, the hospital didn't operate on the femur until 24 hours after the accident, a fact that the surgeon himself indicated increased the potential complications by a very large factor. Turns out that some admitting douchebag put the wrong surgeon's name on the admitting form, one that wasn't on call until the next day, and the surgeon that we actually passed in the hallway had no idea he was even in the hospital.

So now, we all have to wait and see if that wait means an infection might set in and force an amputation of the leg, a fact that the victim himself has not yet been made aware of. No reason to tell him what might happen, I suppose.

Finally, there's a pretty good sized downfall about living away from an urban center: Mediocre medical care. I imagine they pay the same here, but it must be hard to get quality medical staff to stay in the sticks. Either way, the shit is going to get spread all over the fan when the family sits down with the chief of staff of the hospital over this whole mess.

In the meantime, Superbrother-in-law (I have to come up with something better than that) is beginning to mend, but if he gets through everything ok, it will be awhile before he's going to get to use those legs again.

Now missing that anniversary seems like an awfully small and unimportant thing in light of everything else. These things always do wonders for perspective, don't they?

Labels: everything else, family