Broken Ankle

Well, my parents had their first experience with a Jordanian hospital. My dad broke his ankle a couple days ago. He was alone when an iron gate fell on him. I am grateful that he was able to get out from underneath and make it home. I feel like this could have been much worse.

See below for a section of my mom's journal entries and some pictures:

Thursday, June 28, 2012
Dennis took off for a while and when he came back he walked in with no shirt, his shirt was held to his head and they was bloody, his pants were torn and blood on his knee and he was limping. He had been at the church trying to fix a huge iron gate and it fell on him—yes I warned him before he left that it would be good if he had some help from someone. I took him to a small hospital close to our house. Things are not the same as in the US. The radiologist has not finished school and no one helped him onto the table and they couldn’t make it low. He finally crawled on his knees up some steps to get to the table. It took a total of 1 ½ hours for x-rays with showing the doctor that showed up an hour later. No one washed his wounds. The first doctor was the plastic surgeon. Then a bone doctor came and said his ankle was broken in 2 places and he needed surgery and bolts and a plate put into his ankle. We called Maurad to give him a blessing and swore him to secrecy about Dennis being here because we didn’t want a lot of people up here. The guys taking blood did not use gloves and he had to be stabbed 3 times. Even a lab tech that came to stick his finger didn’t wear gloves. It will be a miracle if he gets out of here without some kind of infection. Here they have classes of rooms. If you are in a private room that is first class and the doctor charges more. Next is second class with 2 beds and third is third class with 3 beds. I was told that 3rd class had no one else in the room so Dennis was fine with that. Then it took forever for the doctors to get around to the surgery, so Dennis got very worried that they wouldn’t do a good job because they would get less money so he insisted on first class. Then there are the elevators. They wouldn’t come. I was told that here in Jordan if the elevator is above your floor you push the down button to call the elevator down to you even if you are going up. If it is below your floor you push the up button so it will come up to you, even if you are going down. Crazy. I am glad I was finally informed about that. I went home and collected things for him for the evening and tomorrow morning and then threw the bloody clothes in the washing machine after treating them. I have to spend the night here because Dennis has so many allergies. The doctor said he cannot walk on his foot for 6 weeks. He doesn’t want to. It is really hurting him. I brought all sorts of things up to work on tonight and watch to keep me busy.

Friday, June 29, 2012
I spent the night in Dennis’s room on a very hard fold-out chair. It reminded me of sleeping all night in the airport in Damascus. Rachel and I ended up with bruises that night. I got some sleep and Dennis didn’t wake up hardly at all. This morning we waited for the doctor to come, but he didn’t come until about 10:30 to tell Dennis he could leave. There were old LDS wheelchairs all over the hospital. We left at 2 PM after one problem and then another. I think the biggest problem is that no one understands what the other persons are doing or are supposed to do. The male nurses upstairs said that another doctor had to give permission for him to leave so they ate lunch and didn’t do his papers. Then the accounting office said another doctor had to clear him and so didn’t do their job. We waited at accounting for 2 hours with Dennis in a wheelchair. We had to pay cash for the surgery before we left because our insurance won’t pay the suppliers in other countries. Thus, it was about $3000 that we had to pay cash. I kept running back and forth to our house and the church to get money, open the church, eat breakfast and finally we were settled with them and left. Dennis had a very hard time getting up our 2 flights of stairs. Now he is bored to tears. I have to constantly get things for Dennis because he can’t walk on his foot for 6 weeks.

Picture of my dad's ankle after the surgery.

An encouraging smile.

Poor ankle and leg.

I'm sure my dad will be just fine, but if you want, you can keep him in your prayers. I'm glad this was only an ankle surgery and not something with organs after reading the description of the hospital. Still, poor guy.