[pokerbobo]

After breaking my femur near the hip in a baseball game, I laid there in pain. My loose fitting uniform was soon skin tight on my right leg. I tried to get up once but the pain was intense. After several minutes the paramedics arrived. They assured me my leg was not broken, because I would really be in pain if it was. They proceeded with the assumption I was having a muscle cramp and placed a traction splint on my leg. They wrapped a velcro strap around my ankle and turned a crank to strech my leg out. This was almost unbearable. I was put into the ambu unit and taken to the hospital. X Rays confirmed what I already knew. I was scheduled for surgery the next morning, but each time I fell asleep that first nite I would relive the event in my dream. My broken leg would jerk into the air and crash back down to the bed. It happened more than a dozen times that nite, and I woke up screaming in pain each time. My roommate in the hospital must have loved me.

Surgery the next morning was an event. The procedure was to cut both sides of my knee, and insert stainless steel rods thru my femur to hold the bone together. (the other option was a full body cast for 6 months, due to the high location of the break) While in surgery, I remember waking up several times while I was supposed to be under. I felt like I was in a auto repair shop as I listened to the drills, and the hammer pounding the rods thru my bone. I felt no pain at the time so that was good.

Surgery ends and the spinal aneastetic would not wear off, so I could not pee (I was numb from the waist down) My bladder got bigger and bigger and I could now feel that pain above my waist. A cath was inserted and I pissed almost two liters. they had to leave some in for fear of my bladder collapsing(for those of you who might not think this is much...try filling a one liter bottle, you wont get half way most times)

The dreams continued for several years but were spaced out much further as time went on. I broke my leg in 1986 less than a week after getting my drivers license. The last dream of the event I remember having was around 1994...but after healing, at least I didnt wake up in pain anymore.