I’m Joe, I’m 26 and live in Waterford, MI. About 4 weeks ago, I was playing catch with the football with a few buddies of mine. Well one of my friends, who is a big guy, decided it would be funny if he tackled me after I caught the ball. I should note that this friend of mine was belligerently drunk. He pulled me down to the ground, and my foot caught on the way down. I broke my fibula, and ruptured some ligaments. They said it was a spiral fracture. Anyway, after a week went by, the swelling went down, and I was ready for surgery that would repair my ligaments and also put a screw in my fibula so it would heal better.

So I go to the surgery prep room that morning, where along with about 10 other people in the room, I was waiting to have surgery. During this time, I swear about roughly a million people (10 maybe) asked me, “What happened to your ankle?” As if it was any of their business, and I wasn’t already sick of explaining it to every person in the world. At this point, though, I was just ready to get the surgery over with, I wanted the healing process to begin, I had already had a fruitless week of waiting for my swelling to go down. Besides that, I didn’t really think the surgery was going to be that bad of an experience, I had my appendix out about 10 years before this, and I figured that was a more serious surgery, and that wasn’t so bad. Well, let me tell you, I was WAY OFF!

Before the surgery started, they asked me if I wanted to get the anesthetic that made me totally unconscious for the surgery, or if I wanted a spinal something or other that would numb me from the waste down and I would be awake (and drugged up) during the surgery! Sounds crazy right? Being awake for a surgery. Well the craziest part is that I took the Doctors advice and got the spinal thing. I need to add, that before the surgery I met everyone that was going to be in the room, and there was one girl, who was about my age, and she was beautiful. She looked like Jack Bauer’s girlfriend in 24, you know the senator’s daughter. Anyway, it was pointless to tell you that, and I never saw her again.

So I go into the operating room. At this time, the drugs kicked in, and I was totally messed up. I had a feeling of euphoria and I caught myself even laughing a few times during the surgery, I was so messed up. Also, in the operating room they were blasting classic rock, I remember hearing Hey Jude, and Teenage Wasteland by The Who, which I thought was totally awesome.

The surgeon, which was the same doctor I originally saw when I first broke the ankle, was quite a character. And by character, I mean he was an asshole. He was shouting very angrily at everyone helping him during the surgery the whole time, as if they were not doing anything right. I figured out, it was just because he was an asshole. But hey, I don’t care, as long as he fixed my foot, which he did a good job of, he could be the biggest asshole in the world.

When the surgery was over with, I was sent to the recovery room. This is where things started to go downhill. My body was still totally numb from the waist down. This is a scary feeling, not having the control to move or even feel your legs made me feel totally helpless. It gave me a new respect for people who are disabled (I know, its not PC) and can’t use their legs. As I began to regain feeling in the lower part of my body, I started to realize that my bladder was FULL!!! I told the nurse and she gave me a bottle to pee in. When I reached down realized that my urinating equipment (my penis) was still totally numb, and I COULDN’T PEE!! Imagine the worst that you have ever had to go to the bathroom, and then imagine waiting another hour on top of that, and that’s what I felt like. This started to get very painful, and then even torturous. I was in so much pain from my bladder, which was 100 percent full and seemed like it was about to explode, that I didn’t mind when the nurse inserted a rubber tube into my pee-hole. That’s right they had to give me a cathader, and let me tell you, the relief from my bladder emptying was better than any feeling I've ever experienced

That was not the end of my hospital misfortunes. A few hours later, I was in my hospital room with my Dad. Which, let me say, my parents are the greatest. They have always been there for me, and they definitely were during this whole ordeal, I feel very lucky. Anyway, I started to feel really nauseous. I proceeded to vomit every 20 minutes for the next 4 hours. This made me feel miserable, I just wanted to sleep. Finally, the nurse (who was awesome) gave me a sleeping pill. I had survived the first night.

The next day, I found out when I woke up that they had lowered my morphine dose because they thought that was what made me sick the night before (which turned out not to be the case). Immediately after they lowered the morphine dose I encountered the worst pain I have felt in my entire life. It was like somebody was closing a vice grip on my ankle. This went on for a few agonizing hours, until I finally convinced the nurse I would rather throw up than suffer that pain (and I have a very high tolerance for pain). After that I finally started to feel better. The worst of it was over, and I stayed one more night. By the time I was discharged (this process took forever) I was ready to get the hell out of there. I am ready and still waiting to get back to work (I own a high rise window cleaning business). Where I will be able to descend down buildings with a healed ankle.