On December 22 I broke my upper left arm, the humerus bone. I was ice skating and fell backwards. There was nothing special about the accident; I'm a relatively good skater. The ice was not ideal, but good enough. Anyhow, when I got up on my knees, I knew immediately that the arm was broken. My lower arm did move when I moved my upper arm. It's a terrifying feeling, not to mention the pain. Luckily, the closest person in the rink happened to be a nurse. She took me into the penalty box and called an ambulance. She did however tell me that the arm was probably not broken, as she conceived me not to be in enough pain. It was just a dislocated shoulder; I wasn't in the mode to argue.
This were to be my first of many things: ambulance trip, morphine, and IV. The ambulance personnel gave the an assessment on the opposite spectrum: that I would need surgery.
The hospital is small, yet the ER is well staffed with competent doctors. The x-ray showed a traverse mid-shaft fracture of the humerus. It was truly scary, and it still is, to see as the ends were crossing. After consultation with an orthopedist the ER doc told me that there is nothing to be done but letting the arm hang in a sling until the swelling went down, which would take a week. I thought he was joking: I believed that a broken arm was put in a plaster cast. But after a couple of months, a slight inconvenience, and multiple autographs, it would come off and life continued as if nothing ever happened.
That is not what typically happens with humerus fractures. The process to complete recovery is a long one.
