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Duncan picked the girls up that afternoon from daycare and told them what had happened. Since the girls’ father lives in Oregon, Duncan had to immediately kick in as full-time care giver getting them to bed at night and off to school in the morning. There were many things dumped on both of us with no notice. For some reason that I still don’t understand, I initially didn’t want Jeff, the girls’ dad, to know. I refused to call him and I wouldn’t let anyone else call him either. Maybe it was the embarrassment….I’m really not sure.

On the morning of the surgery, the surgeon came to my room and told me that a healthy woman of my age shouldn’t have snapped her femur and that there had to be something more going on. He said that it was beyond his scope of expertise and he was sending me to Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to be seen by an orthopedic oncologist. This was a Wednesday, I think.

The problem with MGH is that it tends to be full. I lay in my bed in New Hampshire in traction, in a lot of pain and loaded up with narcotics which I don’t recall doing much good, while we waited for an open bed at MGH. There is a lot of those three days that I don’t recall. I don’t know if the drugs have made me block it out or I’ve just blocked it out for my sanity or a combination of both, but my sister, Dad and Duncan have all told me things that I don’t remember saying or doing.

I do remember a lot of pain. Each time a nurse needed to move me, for an X-ray or some other thing, it was just awful. It was almost beyond tolerance. I have never experienced such tremendous pain in my entire life. Having a baby was pretty bad, but it ended and then there was a beautiful baby. This was not ending and there wasn’t anything beautiful waiting for me at the other end.