my eye seems droppy after hitting my head

MY EYE SEEMS DROPPY AFTER HITTING MY HEAD PLUS

Getting discharged from the ER was smooth and easy I opted for NSAIDs for pain because I don’t like nausea and foggy head that accompany opioids.

I was given a sling and a follow-up appointment in Orthopedics for a week hence. I also had to figure out the best way to get home without having my husband schlepp an hour to retrieve me.Īn obviously important issue to address: What’s the treatment? After all, you can’t put a shoulder in a cast. One of the most urgent was notifying my client that I would not be at their meeting in Tucson the next morning. It worked like a charm and left my head clear, so I could sort out the other issues.

The next question was, what did I need for pain? I opted for 1 gram of IV acetaminophen. But, we will come back to the why later on because it is one of the most important questions that can be asked about a fall. Once I explained that people lost interest in why I fell and concentrated on the result of my fall-the proximal humeral fractures. Did I trip on something-an uneven tile or an object on the floor? No. Did I have chest pain, dizziness, palpitations? No. Bear with me as I take you through some of my thinking.įirst of all, there’s the question: Why did I fall? The folks at the airport and the clinicians in the ER asked all the right questions to make sure it wasn’t something that needed an urgent evaluation. There are so many interesting and important questions raised by my fall that I want to share with you because I learned that a fall is not just a fall and a broken shoulder is not just a broken shoulder. (Photo source: author) Why a fall is not just a fall My Xrays showed a proximal humerus 2-part fracture.

MY EYE SEEMS DROPPY AFTER HITTING MY HEAD PLUS

I had a displaced fracture of the greater tuberosity of the humerus plus a non-displaced surgical neck fracture. The radiologist, an old friend from my running days, gave me the bad news. He sewed up a small laceration in my right eyebrow and arranged for the x-ray. The emergency physician on duty was one of the few people I still knew at Kaiser South San Francisco. So that was how I ended up as a patient in the ER I used to work in. Although he kindly booked me on a later flight, just in case the injury turned out to be something minor, he had already called for an ambulance. This was after I asked him to please take me to the gate in a wheelchair. Can I help?” Grateful, I directed her to take my left arm and gently pull me into a sitting position.īy now, I am the center of attention, surrounded by airport police, passengers, and a United Airlines representative who told me, in no uncertain terms, that I would not be getting on my flight to Tucson. After the fallĪ kind passerby got down on the floor next to me and said, with confidence, “I am certified in first aid. I couldn’t use it to help me get up off the floor. I took the brunt of the fall on my right shoulder, but the worst pain was in the middle of my upper arm. As I tried to get my balance, the backpack slid up towards my head and propelled me forward and down-hard. I was walking my usual fast pace when the ball of my left foot struck the floor first-it had been happening a lot lately-and I stumbled. Optimistic about getting some work done on the plane, I had filled it with medical journals and my laptop. The traffic from Marin to SFO was obnoxious, and the TSA line very slow. I was flying to an important meeting where I was going to have the chance to interview a former Surgeon General. I was in a hurry to get to the gate for my flight to Tuscon. Here is what happened in August 2016 when I fell and broke my shoulder.

Who knew that a trip to the airport, one that I had done many times, would end up so badly.

My eye seems droppy after hitting my head