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I can hear the medic to my right calling in stats and requesting morphine.

“I’m twelve weeks pregnant,” I say.

Too soon for it to be obvious.

“Patient is pregnant,” says the medic. “Can we still administer morphine?”

He pauses a moment and looks down at me. I’m shivering as I lie on the gurney. I’m not even cold.

“No morphine,” he says. “Sorry.”

He looks at me again, then adds, “Boy, you sure are sweating a lot.”

Great. I’m the Richard Nixon of slip-and-falls.

I’m not quite old enough to have given birth to this guy, but we’re far enough apart in age where I could’ve been his babysitter. Even if I had the energy to make the Nixon joke–or even an “Albert Brooks in Broadcast News joke about Nixon” joke–it would’ve been lost on him.

The medic makes up for commenting on my trauma sweat with an astonishing act of kindness: he warns me before every bump in the road for the entire ride. He seems proud to have learned the routes through town, and I have to admit it’s an impressive body of knowledge of something most of us never consider. And as even the slightest movement sends shock waves of pain through my body, his super powers arent wasted on me.

Several potholes and speed bumps later, I’m wheeled into a very crowded ER. I have no idea where my two-year-old son is. He rode in the cab of the ambulance, chattering excitedly about the sirens while thankfully appearing oblivious to my injuries.

We’ve only lived here a couple of weeks. All of our friends and family are at least an hour away and my husband is out of town. A snowstorm had hit just after a bout of freezing rain, and there were many car accidents that day in January 2002. I quickly learned that Dansko wooden heeled clogs and ice hidden under snow don’t mix well.

After a few minutes, I’m wheeled into a room at the ER that barely fits my  gurney. A nurse whose name tag reads ‘Brandy’ asks me a few questions as she uses scissors to cut away my pant leg from mid-thigh downward. My son arrives in the arms of a nurse, who places him on a chair to sit with me. I start crying and am not even sure why, and I can see the worry in his big, brown eyes but I can’t stop.

“Look,” says Brandy. “You’re going to have to get yourself together–for your son’s sake,” she says.

I nod without speaking, trying calm myself and to breathe through the pain.

Even though I know she’s right, I also know that Brandy is kind of a bitch.

“Can you please cover it up?” I say, pointing without looking at my foot. “I really don’t want to look at it.”

Without speaking, Brandy obliges. I can’t tell if she wears a look of disgust as she does, but at this point, I don’t care.

Another nurse arrives to say she’s going to take my son to the cafeteria for a PB&J sandwich and some juice. I’m grateful someone is able to care for him because right now, I can’t. All I know is the pain, washing out everything around me.

Maybe an hour has elapsed since I fell, and I haven’t received any pain medication. Suddenly, I feel horrible for not worrying about this new baby more. I remember the words of a doula I’d met at an art show during my first pregnancy, who told me that right then, my baby was in the safest place he’d ever be for the rest of its life. I clung to those words just then, hoping she was right.

I notice an ancient man with thick, brown rimmed glasses shuffle past the doorway to my room.

How nice, I think to myself. Volunteering in his waning years like that.

I have no idea how long I laid there, my lower right leg covered by what looks like a white kitchen towel, but eventually my mom arrives. She has the same look in her eyes from when she saw me laboring in the hospital–an unnerving combination of fierce love and abject terror, only today it’s mostly terror.

“I had to take a cab to get here,” she says. Legally blind due to macular degeneration, my mom can no longer drive. “The car almost went off the road two, three, four times,” she says.

My mom is the strongest person I have ever known, but today, as on the day my son was born, I can see the dents in her armor.

“Where’s Jackie?” she asks, looking around the tiny room.

“In the cafeteria with a nurse,” I say. Brandy reappears and offers to take my mom to him. It’s the last time I see either of them that day. The cab driver drove with them back into the storm, even escorted them inside and made sure they were safely settled in.

With Jackson and my mom gone, I wait a short while until I’m wheeled into a large, open room filled with an array of medical equipment. A woman with brown hair wearing light purple scrubs stands beside me and gently says they’re going to take some X-rays before I’m prepped for surgery.

Surgery. Gah.

I see the old volunteer hobbling my way, and his thin, fuzzy hair and hunched back remind me of Yoda.

“This is Dr. Bobba,” says the tech in the purple scrubs. “Our attending ER physician.”

“Doctor–” I can barely say it without smiling, but am proud that I at least refrain from laughing as we exchange greetings.

After placing a couple of reassuring, weighty lead aprons across my pelvis, the tech takes images of my leg by maneuvering a massive machine over me, since moving me would be both painful and impractical. She also takes images of my right shoulder, which is still painful to lie on or move at all.

When the tech finishes, Dr. Bobba shuffles over puts a hand on one arm and speaks to me in a reassuring tone. His voice and skin tone hint at an Asian origin, somewhere near India, I’d guess.

“This is Bonnie,” he says to me, gesturing behind him (he has to turn his torso since his head and neck won’t oblige). A tall, slim fifty-something woman with blonde wavy hair and glasses smiles down at me.

“Bonnie has some nitrous oxide for you,” he says. “I suggest you inhale deeply, as it will help you manage the pain.”

Finally, something for the pain, I think, as Bonnie smiles down at me. She has kind eyes, and as she gently places the mask over my face, I don’t notice that about eight hospital staff members have surrounded the gurney.

I take a shallow, cursory breath of nitrous when I feel Dr. Bobba quickly and deftly grab my right leg.

Imagine trying to scream as loudly and forcefully as your body will permit. Then double–no,  maybe triple–it, and you might have a close approximation to the sound I make.

When it’s over, my entire body shakes uncontrollably and before I can regain my breath, Dr. Bobba grabs my foot again to finish resetting it.

I don’t scream as loudly this time, but the pain is no less intense. I lay there, panting like a mountain lion, shivering uncontrollably, and once again drenched in sweat.

My only thought, besides being grateful for not having died of shock, is how in the hell did that little old man move so quickly?

Everyone congratulates me on getting through it while I’m wondering who I should kill first: Dr. Bobba or myself.

I’m wheeled back into the waiting room and finally look down at my foot. Instead of hanging sideways at a right angle away from my body, it’s back on straight again. The pain has receded a few hairs short of excruciating.

I close my eyes briefly when Dr. Bobba enters the room holding an X-ray.  I notice he’s standing just out of arm’s reach from me, a good thing since I’m actively considering strangling him.

“The films show that you have also dislocated your shoulder,” he says. Before I can reply he turns his torso and calls out the door:

“Bonnie! Bring the nitrous!”

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