Mid-May has been my horizon since January. The book tour would be over, grades would be in for the class I was teaching at MICA, nights and weekends freer, travel lighter. As much as I enjoyed the events — considerably, in part because I got to see not a few of you — I yearned for slowness. So as life conspires to do, it delivered ... just not in the manner I'd hoped. At an innocuous trot during a soccer match on Easter Sunday, my patellar tendon snapped, and I started a new chapter of relative immobilization. 

Its opening lines were marked by more engagement with our broken healthcare system than I'd bargained for this year, though we are far from strangers. There are impressive and wonderful things within that system. I'm as well as can be hoped and recovering thanks to it. But too often, it seemed to me, an individual could make or break an outcome while the systems into which they plugged appeared idle, out to lunch, but, of course, still profiting. Mind you, I have access to stellar care, relatively speaking. I've got resources and good insurance. And still. Here's a peek into my 24 hours post-injury, from pitch to ER to OR, jotted down on a sleepless night post-discharge. 

1:20pm | Tendon snaps. Teammates call an ambulance, which arrives a few minutes before Haleemah. The paramedics stretcher me to our car and advise us on a hospital — fee avoided. 

2:45pm | Haleemah has been watching The Pitt, so she prepares us for the ER. One fellow patient has a large bruise on his head; another is flanked by parents and looks dressed for church. I get triaged, and consistent with past experience, I struggle with the pain scale. It's too subjective. How would I know what a 10 is?  

3:15pm | They take me to the X-ray room. The tech is alone and cavalier. I ask him to help me hold my left leg up so I can get on and off the table. (The mechanism by which I can lift it is shot.) He agrees, then lets it drop. The pain is much greater than my scale self-report, and I yell. "Don't yell. Your bones are fine. It's just a tendon. I have the same problem." No, no, you do not. 

4:00pm | Back in the ER, two young, kind nurses keep me comfortable. An attending with an ultrasound machine hits on the diagnosis. "Do you use anabolic steroids?" is about as close to a hypothesis for the injury as we get, which is to say very far — my bodybuilding never took off. A second-year resident from orthopedic surgery comes to talk through options: get admitted and have surgery at 7am the next day or go home and schedule surgery for Friday. Our insurance calculations begin: what's in network? How might that differ if I get admitted vs. if I do the surgery outpatient? BlueCross BlueShield didn't bother to staff any phones that day, and the hospital doesn't know, so we are going off some plan documents, a shoddy online directory, and takes from family members in the medical world, four nurses, and one doctor. I'm weighing the fate of two book events on Tuesday and Wednesday that are especially important to me, and the possibility of making it to at least one (success!). We talk through the eventualities for three hours. "We love that you're advocating for yourself," one nurse says. Sigh — it shouldn't be so necessary. 

7:00pm | Let's do it tomorrow, we decide. I'm admitted, which means I lay on a stretcher in a hallway, making phone calls, changing flights, cancelling events, and working my way through a large bag of salt and vinegar chips, a container of cheddar squares, and a pint of raspberries. 

9:00pm | I make it to a room. The nurse tries to administer blood thinners. I protest; those don't mix well with surgery. She can't remember what questions she's supposed to ask me. She's supposed to take my vitals and "will be right back." Before she leaves, she borrows my pen to write something on a paper towel that she hangs outside my door. Haleemah tries to find her before she goes home, but there's no one to be found. The third floor is, reportedly, a ghost town. 

2:00am | My nurse is "right back," waking me after remembering my existence, to connect my cords to the room's cords. 

5:45am | A group of six residents and medical students show up to remind me I'm having surgery. I get wheeled downstairs 15 minutes later.

7:00am | Like clockwork, I'm in the OR, after a competent, efficient, kind cavalcade of people explains things to me, checks on me, asks me to sign things. The surgeon seems to shift by the minute between two colleagues (a piece of the insurance angst of the day before) until one arrives and marks his territory by signing my leg. He responds to my age/injury with a "Huh. Textbook." 

10:00am | I come to, all wrapped up. I get instructions on the nerve block that's administered through a line into my leg to manage the pain. They roll me back upstairs, where a new nurse awaits. He's serious, reserved, and  perturbed that my bed was on the wrong side of the room the night before. The only thing that stands between me and home is showing a member of the physical therapy staff that I can use crutches effectively. 

12:00pm | After a couple hours and multiple calls, there's no sign of said PT staff member. I call the orthopedic surgery practice, they transfer me to the general hospital line, which transfers me back to the practice, whose administrative staff hangs up at the familiar voice from moments prior. 

1:00pm | The nurse gets the PT department on the line. They won't be able to get to me today; I'll have to stay for an additional night, we're told. The nurse has the call on speaker, and I protest. The PT staffer chides the nurse for letting me listen in. "I have nothing to hide," he replies. The nurse calls the surgeon's office, which confirms I need only demonstrate my crutch proficiency to him. I show off my skills.

2:00pm | As I prep to leave, a physical therapist arrives. Curtains rise on show #2. I roll on out.

This experience is nothing exceptional, of course, and in many ways counts as good. But had I been in more pain, less stubborn, alone, or not as well versed in insurance shenanigans, I could have been out an ambulance trip, on the hook for another night in the hospital, and possibly down some blood after a less clotty surgery than expected. I'm grateful that wasn't the case, and for the able providers who have me on the mend. One month into a long recovery, the knee in question is reluctantly bending, and I'm adjusting to a different kind of break than I'd hoped.