Read it: Broken Ankle Club (Shulin Chen & me) and Miranda Canilang, RN
Amy Xu: Being in the ER for so long, my dogs had been alone for well over 24 hours, maybe a little bit over 24 hours. But they were by themselves for 24 hours and you can already tell they're nuts. They were going crazy. They ripped up so much stuff. I finally got a dog sitter to come over. Came back home, I was like, Wow this place is a whole mess. Then the next day I was on the kitchen floor. There's so much stuff to pick up but I didn't want to be just at risk of falling. So I sat on my butt and moved myself around the floor. I pushed myself with my arms and I just picked everything up, and you have to be kind of strategic about it because it's really tiring. But when it was done, I did feel pretty accomplished.
Shulin Chen: I cannot believe you were trying to clean your apartment on your knees after surgery.
Amy Xu: I think it just was like, I've spent so long in the hospital, I feel so gross and now my home is also… I think it's different with dogs because I just wanted to worry about myself. I didn't want to worry about what they were putting in their mouths because they just had ripped up so much. I was like, I have to do something about this. It made me feel really good about myself afterwards.
Shulin Chen: I was not moving for many days after post op.
Amy Xu: You got the nerve block, right? Doesn't the nerve block take days to wear off?
Shulin Chen: It does take a few days to wear off. It is a little bit scary because you have no motor function of your leg. Even going to the bathroom, they were like, Be really careful. You don't want to accidentally drop your leg on the floor.
Amy Xu: What's your favorite ankle fracture related memory?
Shulin Chen: I woke up around 11:30 and binge watched a TV show. I became really hungry so ordered something on doordash. I don't even remember what the food was, where the food was from. But once it arrived, I was able to get on my crutches. I hobbled to the front door, I got it, and I just took everything out of the containers, went back to my bed, opened it. I ate it and that food tasted so good.
Amy Xu: That sounds amazing. Did you get Asian food or Chinese food? I should have gotten that.
Shulin Chen: I don't even remember. It might have been like Middle Eastern food, very savory and just hit the spot. It's just like survival. You’re so hungry.
Amy Xu: Now I'm jealous. I should have ordered something savory when I came back home.
Shulin Chen: What did you do?
Amy Xu: I got [Honey Grow]. And I'm not a salad person. I just was so paranoid about everything. I was like, I cannot indulge. I'm gonna get myself a salad. And then I was like, I'm just eating rabbit food.
Shulin Chen: I feel like you took your ankle fracture as like… What meaning do you assign your fracture? What do you what do you say is the reason why you broke her ankle? And how has that changed who you want to be moving forward?
Amy Xu: Oh, this is a really deep question. I think the reason why I broke my ankle is because I was in some situations where maybe I wasn't taking care of myself the best way. So you know, not eating and being really stressed out, and all very normal things, but then all of those things just came together with bad luck and then I broke my ankle. And moving forward, I would like to take better care of myself, even though I know you can be taking the best care of yourself and still break your ankle. But it's just something that I would like to work on moving forward. I don't know if I answered your question.
Shulin Chen: Yeah, you did. I am starting to notice with myself too, we assign meanings, This happened to me because… Obviously it happened because there was an accident. I think it's part of human nature to try and understand the why, to assign a why even though there might not be one logically. So I was curious based on little tidbits of what you chose to eat right now, how you chose to clean right after.
Amy Xu: Wow, you put that you put all the pieces together really quick. I would be excited to learn why you think you broke your ankle, and how you think it changed you.
Shulin Chen: The meaning that I assigned to why I broke my ankle was a lack of boundaries. And I say that because I think COVID is, yes it’s stressful, but it also removes a lot of the boundaries that people typically have, the boundaries between the workplace and the home, family members and friends, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. Your relationships all become entangled, and so does the relationship you have with yourself.
When I moved out of San Francisco, I was traveling a lot. I was working from home wherever I was traveling to. I didn't really have a sense of home. My sense of home was wherever I was next, and the person that I was with. When I came home to my family, I realized that the boundaries kind of melded together and I became someone that I was when I was younger. You assume your familial responsibility, your role and your family. I always had trouble saying no growing up, and I think you probably experienced this too. It's like, your parents have expectations of you and you must deliver.
It was like my parents’ expectations, my sister was living at home, she was visiting home too, she brought her fiancé, they were all at home. I grew up cooking for my entire family, three meals a day, I’m juggling my own full time job.
This was like a day in my life. This was exactly one week before I got my ankle surgery. At 4:30pm my sister calls me. She's like, Can you come downstairs? I just wrapped up a work call and I was like, Sure, what's up? She said, I just started making brioche bread but I have to run out for an errand. Can you just finish making this for me? And I was like, You know I don't typically get off work until 6, right? She's like, But are you in a meeting? No? So I was like, Okay, I'll do this for you. I'll do this one thing for you. Then I'm 15 minutes into kneading the dough, I get a phone call from my mom and she says, Hey, I forgot to bring the keys and my tenant’s locked out. You need to come into the city and drop off the keys for me. I said, Mom, I can't right now. I'm in the middle of making this for my sister. She starts cursing, she’s like, Why does your sister want to make bread right now? What I need is more important. I don't want to get into this drama so I put them on a three way call. They start arguing each other and my sister’s like, Okay, you keep on making the bread, I'll come back and I'll grab the keys. But before she does that, my mom says, You need to go downstairs and take a picture of the keys so your sister knows which keys it is. I'm like, Okay. I go from the top of the stairs to the bottom of the stairs. Before I make to the bottom of the stairs, my mom calls me and she's like, Where are the pictures? I was like, I'm getting there. Then I get a text from her fiance that says, The clothes are finished washing. Can you put them in the dryer, please? Before I'm done with that, my dad calls. He says, What time is dinner? Just my life every day. I told myself I was going to do it until my parents were done with the move.
The day that I broke my ankle, I was helping them move. I was scrambling in between meetings, I went to drop my mom off at an appointment. I needed to go upstairs, bring laundry baskets down to help carry stuff. My sister called me and she said, You need to bring me a checked luggage so I can put my wedding dress in it, please just bring it back now. I had two laundry baskets in my left hand, a checked luggage in my right hand, my backpack with two laptops in it. I took one step down. I made it all the way down the staircase. I never said no. I think I could have said no. I just didn't have the voice to say no. And I thought that I was invincible. I thought, I'm able bodied, I can do it, it's my duty.
I’m curious. I want to check in with you in a few weeks and see how you're doing.
Amy Xu: Oh yeah, of course we can do that.
Miranda Canilang: Hi, I’m Miranda and I am Amy’s college friend. I worked as a bedside nurse for 15.5 months on a neurology and neurosurgery floor, and pretty much all the surgeries on my floor had to do with the brain and the spine.
For a lot of patients, time slows or stops when in the hospital. Each day is roughly scheduled the same: rounding visits form the medical or surgical team, breakfast, morning meds, physical therapy, lunch, afternoon meds, late afternoon meds, dinner, nighttime meds, sleep, and many assessments by many different people in between. The outside world still moves without you, so it can be very stressful to have a plan or communicate with others in your absence. Homework, work piles up, kids needs their parents, parents need their kids, pets need to be taken care of. There’s never a good time to be in the hospital. And trust me, nurses don’t want you staying in the hospital forever or coming back often either.
I think a lot of people view surgery as an instant fix or life reset and that’s far from reality. Recovery is a long journey of pain, rehab, and often healthy lifestyle adjustments. Obviously, not all reasons why people get sick or injured are in their control. But I really do believe that preventative and primary care and good lifestyle habits make a huge difference. So I’m happy to hear that Amy and Shulin are trying to take care of themselves better and set boundaries on their time and energy.