brokenness.

(As told by kyle westbrook to taylor green, since he can't type very well)

(also, i'll scatter around pretty pictures throughout the post, before the awesome & raunchy x-rays and stuff at the end!)

well, as pretty much everyone has heard, i broke myself a week ago today. it's been exciting at some times and disappointing at others, and painful most of the time, but it's always been an adventure so far. here's kind of the story as it happened, as it's been, and as it's going to be for the coming weeks.

at the awesome/insane alianza soccer match.  i am an international fútbol convert!

amazing seafood in miraflores.  i'm going to miss this for sure!

A week ago today, on Saturday the 29th, us interns along with the Fletchers and the Yoakums made a morning trip to the beach in barranco about five minutes from our house. We spent the morning playing in the sand and surf, and just generally relaxing. Around noon, Wes and Kyle G. had spent the past hour trying out their new skimboards, which they had made themselves. A skimboard is a piece of wood formed kind of like a boogie board that you throw down on the tide coming in, and you jump on to glide on the water. This is something that requires balance, which I am sorely lacking in. Anyways, I went over to them and tried it once, and was semi-successful, mashing my toe into bleeding in the process. Just as they were finishing, I decided I wanted to try one more time. I ran out, threw down the board, and stepped way too far to the front of the board. the front tip dug into the sand and shot the board out from behind me, and I fell shoulder first straight onto the hard, wet sand. Right as I fell a wave crashed over me, so I couldn't hear anything, but I felt a crunch in my left shoulder. It didn't hurt too bad right away, but after the wave receded I rolled over on my back and looked down and noticed that there was bone poking up, but not through the skin. I felt the spot and could feel pieces moving around. Not good. So Kyle came over to me and I told him I broke my collar bone. He thought I was joking at first, but then he saw and believed, like thomas haha. So I got up and walked about 2/3 of the way to our spot on the beach and it started hurting pretty bad, so I sat down to avoid passing out. At this point, two peruvian life guards came running up in awesome baywatch style, red speedos, long hair and all. One of them tried to grab my shoulder, but everyone yelled and thankfully stopped them. I tried to walk again to the Fletchers' car with the two lifeguards on either side of me, but I was starting to get woozy, so they decided to grab the surf board/backboard and carry me up the rocky incline to the car. (Taylor: I was freaking out the whole time they were doing this. He was about to fall off.) They did successfully get me into the car though and Lee drove Wes and I to the hospital, Clinica Anglo-Americana, while everyone else waited at the beach.

sunday morning hanging out with kiddos in villa maria.  perhaps my favorite times so far in lima.

singing God's praises

The hospital was super nice and was the location of the second chapter of my adventure. First, since I was COVERED in sand from head to toe, the small Peruvian nurses tried to give me a sponge-bath/shower sort of thing. Basically I stood naked in a blue rubbermaid storage bucket while she splashed ice-cold water all over me. This caused my muscles to tense up, leading to PAIN. Then when she was drying me off after not very much success, she pushed right on the brokenness, more PAIN. All told, the shower didn't really do anything other than PAIN. Soon after this, I had x-rays done, and after some short discussion with the doctor, it was decided that surgery was the best option. I had two compound fractures of the clavicle and a dislocation from the shoulder, so there were 3 individual pieces floating around. At 5:00 pm I went into surgery and it lasted about 1 1/2 hours. I took a little while longer than expected coming out of the anesthesia, but other than that everything went very smoothly. Apparently I was convinced when I was waking up that I was speaking really good spanish to all the nurses, so I was clearly delusional. :) I spent the next two nights in the hospital for observation, and I was blessed to have lots of visitors, and Wes and Mark spent the two nights with me. Thanks also to the Davidsons for the awesome brownies that everyone but me ate :) The two doctors I saw, including my surgeon, were both trained in the US and spoke pretty good English. However, all the nurses only spoke Spanish, so I got some good practice in. In the procedure, they lined up my bones, cemented them together, and then put on a titanium plate and 6 screws. I have two 1-inch long incisions on each end of the plate where the two sets of 3 screws went in. So far there have been no problems at all with the incisions and they are healing up nicely, with no infection and decreasing swelling. I should have some awesome scars :) On monday, I went home, with a rocking new denim sling to secure my arm.  Pretty stylin'.

beautiful lima sunsets during tuesday music night.  can't wait to be able to play again!

Onto the third chapter of recovery, which is still being written.  I've spent the past week at home at the Yoakum's house and increasingly moving about.  It has been nice to regain a little autonomy despite the fact that I can't use my left arm much, as I can get up and down, take a shower, make a pb&j, and stuff all by myself.  Pretty much all that is left is putting on a shirt, tying my shoes, and putting on my sling, as I still need help with these things.  Here's the plan going forward. On Wednesday the 9th my dad is flying in, and we're going to have a day of fun around town and gringo church that night, and then we are flying back to Dallas on Thursday morning bright and early.  I still have two more weeks of immobilization, but following that, I will have a currently unknown amount of time of physical therapy and rehab in Texas.  During this time, I plan on resting a ton, eating lots of Tex-Mex and BBQ, and working diligently at getting back full range of motion as efficiently as possible. I have tremendous motivation to do this because I really really really want to get back to Lima as quickly as I can. I absolutely love it here and the ministry that God has in this place, and so I'm going to put one foot in front of the other and get 'er done. But, in the mean time, in addition to eating wonderful Texas food, I'm planning on making a trip or two to College Station during my time in Texas. So that'll be fun :) My goal for returning, at this point, is around the beginning of April. I have no experience with physical therapy like this, and so this could either be super optimistic or easy to accomplish. But at this point, it's hard to tell. My body has always responded well to recovery from fractures, so I'm hopeful that healing will come soon. Already, I can tell that my pain has gone down and that some small amounts of movement are becoming easier. But, I trust God's will for my shoulder and I'm looking forward to what he has in store, whether that's in Texas or Peru. When my doctors have more of a time table for recovery, I'll get another plane ticket and I'll be coming back! So I'm excited about all the things in store over the coming months. I've definitely had to deal with some disappointment as I wasn't planning on having to come back to the States a month after getting here, but I know that the other 3 will get plugged in various exciting ministries and that they can help me out when I get back. I covet continued prayers for myself and for everyone here in Lima, and especially for the Peruvians that we've had a chance to work with. Thank y'all so much for everything that you've done for me so far, including encouragements and prayers, and I'm looking forward to seeing y'all while I'm back. John Mark has impressed upon me the idea of "living the story" and I feel like this has just been another exciting and crazy twist in the story of myself and our team. It definitely hasn't been boring. :) I'm looking forward to sleeping on my side, and playing flag football in no time!  If you have any other questions or anything, shoot 'em my way.  Thanks again and God bless!

man, i love this city.

Taylor: Ok now another side of the story. I've been on nurse duty for the past couple of days, but I honestly love taking care of people, especially Kyle, so it hasn't been a burden for me at all. Really, the stress of worrying about him and his recovery has been the only thing that has been hard on me. I must say that I am very sad that he is having to leave, but I know that it is the right decision. I am going to miss him, but most of all I hate that he is having to miss so much of this trip that we all have been preparing for for so long. I also hate that I won't be there to help him in is recovery, but like Kyle, I know that God has a plan for all of this. It is just sometimes harder for me to accept that as easily as he can. But we are all going to be ok, and we're already excited about one-up-ing the mariachi band for Kyle's return!

Thanks for listening to our long story! We figured everyone would want to know all the gory details :) Now for some cool x-ray pictures!

2 compound fractures of the clavicle. notice the 3 jagged pieces and the dislocation from the shoulder. it kinda hurt.

another x-ray of the same spot

comparison: normal and broken

progressive shots during the surgery. bottom right is the final product

same x-rays: top left is bones lined up, top right is initial application of the plate and 6 screws

further alignment and final placement of the plate

outside: 5 days after surgery. notice awesome lack of swelling. thank you Dr. Torres.

the two incisions, with some residual bruising and swelling

shouldn't have too much scarring! kinda a bummer haha