Dislocating for a Day

There's a Mat Kearney song called Closer to Love and one of the lines of the song is, "I guess we're all one phone call from our knees."

We all know those phone calls. The middle-of-the-night, automatically-wake-up phone calls. We instinctively press the answer button and our thoughts go into survival mode. Well, Australia Kaylie now knows them, too--thanks to her wonderful, ungraceful friend Katie.

I tossed and turned in my thoughts about going out on Saturday night. I had a headache for some of the day and per usual, the benefits of staying snuggled up in my covers outweighed the benefits of putting in effort and looking put together to go out to a nightclub. I sent most of my friends off with a smile and the given "Have fun, be safe" phrase. All usually goes well. Usually. 

The phone rang just after midnight. I had just closed my eyes but given my exhaustion, was already in that limbo between awareness and deep sleep.  The groggy "Hello" rapidly cleared to a "You're going where? What happened? How? Let me talk to her." My friend Betsy was first on the phone, then it switched to my friend Tim, and then it got to the woman of the hour: Katie. So, between Betsy, the calm yet quick passer-of-the-phone; Tim, the straight-to-the-point talker; and Katie, the hysterically bawling and detail oriented injured girl; I collected a rough idea of what happened: Katie took a tumble in her wedges and dislocated her index finger and they were going to the hospital. It's a fixable thing. You go see the orthopedic doctor and they pop it back in, simple and quick, right? So we all thought.

I told them to keep me updated. Most people would have gone back to bed considering the helplessness, and the length of time it takes to be in an ER. But I didn't. I couldn't. I heard Katie's cries in my ears and needed to know when she was back safely sleeping in her bed just down the hall from me. One hour came and went. Then two. Then three. Until I finally couldn't hold my eyelids open anymore and sent a text to one of them to please just wake me up when they're back. I got a phone call fifteen minutes later saying they were back, without Katie. The hospital was too packed to take care of her right away. And as the story plays out, they were unable to jam her finger back into place as well.

Sympathetic but a tad more exhausted, my sleepiness won the battle after that phone call. Now, fast forward three hours and I get another one of those phone calls. But I'm so out-of-it that I can't seem to tell my fingers to click that answer button, and it goes to a missed call. Then knocks come to my door. It's 6:30am and I'm still just so spacey. I answer it and it's my friend Erica telling me "There's bad news about Katie." The first hospital tried to pop her finger back in but couldn't. So they transferred her via ambulance to a second hospital specializing in orthopedics sometime in between those hours I was sleeping. But they couldn't either. Because the ligaments are torn and the bone is actually broken. She now needs surgery. (sidenote: Australian hospitals call operating rooms, theatres...)

My heart sinks and I go into that survival mode once again. The phone call I couldn't tell my dreary self to answer was Katie--well, actually Justin acting as her liaison. The saint he is needed to be rescued because he had been with Katie since the night before, and I needed to be with one of my best friends. Within twenty minutes, I had scrambled clothes, electronics, bus information, and adrenaline into my backpack and was en route to the Southport Gold Coast Hospital. An hour, two buses, and a sketchy one-mile walk later, I was where I needed to be.

She was in pain, and lots of it. We kept getting false hope. And bad news. First, the surgery was supposed to be done at 8:30am. Then it wasn't. Then at noon they told us two hours. Then 2:30pm came and we were told it was going to yet another three hours. We talked to about three different people about her prognosis. A cast would be about 4-6 weeks. She might need wires in her hand to hold up the ligaments, which would then require another incision to get them out at a later date. Did I mention it's her right hand? And that she has all these trips planned: Sydney, Great Barrier Reef, Moreton Island? Scuba diving. Kayaking. I grieved with her but we still remained optimistic: she wouldn't have to worry about awkward tan lines because peak season is in November; she could have broken a much larger body part; there's things to go around casts to make them waterproof.

She couldn't eat, so I didn't eat out of solidarity. She actually slept sometimes, so I closed my eyes and kept praying and meditating to God and Buddha and all those powers that the surgery would at least be that same day. We were in this together. Except I did all the secretarial work of updating everyone, my pleasure. Around 4:00pm, we got the news we wanted: she was going to go up to prep and hopefully from that point be wheeled into surgery. And so the waiting game started for me, riding solo in a hospital room with six other patient beds, one of those a neurotic old woman that would yell at the TV and have a soap opera fight with her three grown children for public viewing. I cried because I didn't want Katie to be disabled to do certain things for the next 6 weeks. And I cried because hospitals are just scary places for me in general. Then I tried to keep myself preoccupied.

About 6:15pm, I heard the familiar hospital-bed wheels squeaking and looked up to see my warrior of a best friend smiling back at me saying, "Kaylie, it's only on for two weeks! Two weeks that's nothing!" When the doctors went in, they were able to maneuver around and pop the finger back in place without having to put wires into the ligaments. A small incision and three stitches later, this girl has been declared the luckiest girl in the whole world.

Waiting for surgery with a makeshift cast.

They wouldn't let me stay the night with her (she had to be kept to make sure she didn't get an infection from the incision) so I left around 7pm, after an almost twelve-hour shift there--I don't know how those nurses do it! And at that point Katie finally had her food! Unfortunately, the bus system stopped working a half hour prior so I had to take a cab but it was worth it: back in twenty-five minutes and I got to just sit and let out a deep breath that everything was finally okay. Relief in hand, I marched over to the cafeteria and scarfed down the food I had been salivating about. She ate, so now I could, see how that works? I stopped in her room to see it decorated with streamers, balloons and flowers awaiting her arrival for the next day. She really has won the hearts over of all her friends here.

When I (and Justin earlier) got back, people were saying that I was such a good friend for being there for her. But, the fact is I never thought not to be there. It was never a burden; she is one of my best friends and I have known her since the first day of high school. She needed me, and I was there; sometimes we all need saving, no matter how small the matter may be. And I think just maybe that "one phone call from our knees" shows exactly who matters most to us in this world.

Just making the best of it.