Broken Elbow

On the night of October 22 I went out to play basketball.  I have found a group of women here in Twin who play twice a week and boy is it fun.  I have thoroughly enjoyed it and I love the exercise.  On this particular evening as I was running down the court I was tripped up and went down with both my arms extended.  I landed on my left palm first and then kind of rolled and hopped up.  I didn't feel immediate pain, but more uncomfortable and I noticed right away that I could't straighten my arm all the way.  I kept on playing for another forty minutes or so, but as I played it started to hurt a little more.  Then I couldn't catch the ball at all with that left arm or I did feel strong shooting pain.  Finally, I knew something was wrong and had to stop playing.  As I headed out to my car my arm started to really hurt and if I moved it or bent it at all it would seize up and then the pain would hit.  Blinding, horrible, can't talk or think kind of pain.  I got home around midnight and told Dan, who I had to wake up, that I think I had really hurt myself.  He told me to go to the ER, but I thought I could wait until morning and see how it was feeling.  I didn't want to pay an ER bill.  But as I got in the shower and realized there was no way my shirt was coming off because, by this point, I really couldn't move my arm at all or I would experience blinding pain.  Dan managed to get it off without killing me and I took my shower, with the pain getting worse and worse with a more constant throbbing.  I knew after the shower I needed to go to the ER.  Since it was so late I made Dan stay home with the kids rather than wake them up or wake up a neighbor to watch them.  I went to the ER and it was confirmed I had broken the radial head.  Since I had driven myself to the hospital they couldn't give me the stronger pain killers or I wouldn't be able to drive myself home so I lay there in pain.  Then the nurse came in to set the elbow.  WORSE. PAIN. EVER.  I have never had pain like that in my entire life.  It gave me a new understanding of how Braden felt when he broke his arm and was freaking out when the nurse tried to twist it when doing the x-ray.  They had to pin me down in order to get that elbow at a 90 degree angle because it hurt so badly.  Finally, they sent me home with those lovely pain killers in hand and the moment I got home I took them.  Lots of them.  And some muscle relaxants.  The combination of the two made me slightly psychotic, but oh so nice to feel like that.  Needless to say I have discovered that the muscle relaxants are a no-no for me.  Broken elbow is now on the mend.