A Little Thanksgiving Snow

This week has been eventful for me to say the least. On Thanksgiving we had our family friends the Douglasses over for dinner. We didn't stray from the warmth of our homes for Black Friday shopping, and in fact didn't participate in that end of the festivities at all. It was Saturday by the time we realized that a local outdoor type store was having a ridiculous sale on all the household favorite brands of outdoor clothing. But by that time it was too late anyway (even if some of us had been willing to stray from our Nazi-type Dave Ramsey inspired budgets ;). By Sunday afternoon it had really begun to steadily snow. Not dumping, but a steady downfall, which was enough to provoke the men of the house into initiating the first sledding trip of the season (meanwhile the women of the house occupied themselves with a few rounds of Just Dance, and layering down to our gym clothing in the warmth of the house). It was in the middle of this sweaty gaming that a crying Sam burst into the house quite a while later. Within five minutes we were loading a pained-looking Bradley into a freezing car and barreling down the icy road in a carful of foggy windows as the grey snow continued to fall unfazed against us. Along the way my mother and I dragged the full story from my brother and dad of how Bradley had flown down the largest hill in the just-fallen snow, sitting on his knees atop the sled and skidding off unceremoniously at the bottom. He wore only one black snow boot when we wheeled him into the emergency room lobby in a wheelchair. He sat uncomfortably through the filling out of the proper paperwork and when the nurses took him in we were finally exposed to the whole of the matter when they cut off his sock and most of his pants. Bradley's right ankle was twisted unnaturally to the left, bent at a chilling angle. The nurses swooped in and out taking blood pressure, rating his pain, inserting an intravenous feed and giving him both Demerol and a nausea fighting agent. They gave him warm blankets and ice packs for the swelling, but ultimately after a brief X-ray they were forced to admit that the breakage was beyond their abilities because they could not administer the necessary sedation. Twenty minutes later an ambulance arrived to take Bradley to another hospital ten minutes away. As usual the ambulance crew was the most agreeable, calm inspiring individuals on the scene, instantly setting everyone at ease as they joked with Bradley, sent the nurses scurrying for extra necessities, and spoke to my parents about the impending trip. We followed the ambulance to another hospital and my father and I waited for news in the lobby. We paced, read the classifieds in the newspaper (something I cannot remember ever doing before), read the pitiful funnies, played with the coffee machine, and eventually my dad left, telling me he needed a walk. I ended up in the lobby alone with a nearly dead phone, no book, no music, crappy reality television, uninteresting newspaper articles and an issue of some unpopular magazine. I suddenly remembered that I was starving and began to wander the hospital myself, questing for some kind of sustenance. I happened across a closed cafeteria, and then a row of vending machines that refused to take any of my bills except a single one dollar bill, with which I purchased a frozen burrito and proceeded to attempt to warm it in a microwave that must have doubled as a time machine on the weekends. By this time we had been informed that Bradley's ankle was severely fractured and dislocated, which may have necessitated surgery or possibly a second ambulance ride to the hospital in Anchorage. In the short time span of an hour or two, however, they managed to reset his ankle into a more normal position. By seven thirty my father and I met my mother and brother at the doors to the hospital, Bradley clothed in synthetic blue hospital shirt and pants, right leg in a temporary splint, and leaning against a set of new crutches. We lifted him sideways across the back seat where he leaned against me, still somewhat sedated. I held my brother close, realizing how little I had done so recently. Bradley has spent the past few days clad in the same blue hospital clothing, mostly sedentary and hobbling about on crutches when necessary. There's no denying it though, the cast will be cool.