a week late, but I'm back. And ALIVE!
Final tally, jumped a couple of baby poons, went 0/3 on nurse sharks on a couple of flats, confirmed that there are some "Strong" mystery fish in the mangroves at a special key, and caught a lot of snapper for the table. Weather conditions weren't really conducive to good fishing, a cold front came thru the day before we got there.
The real excitement started about 9:00 Monday morning, the day we were heading home (1/12). I had gone down to the boat to start getting it ready to load on the trailer. The guys in the boat next to us had donated some pinfish earlier in the trip, so I wanted to pass the chum we had not used in return. As I stepped off the casting deck of the boat onto the dock, I realized just how slick the dock was with a heavy dew from the night before. My feet shot out from under me and I fell down between the dock and the shore. Unfortunately, there was a 4x4 that tied the dock to the shore. I wrapped my left side around it. Knocked the wind out of me and hurt like hell, but when I could finally breathe again, I wasn't coughing/spitting blood so I figured I was OK. Long story short, 3 hours later as we were heading up US1 we passed Fisherman's Hospital in Marathon (Uber props to these guys and gals!!!). Dad pulled in so that I could at least get some pain meds and muscle relaxants for the muscle spasms that were racking my entire body. Of course the Dr. wanted to do xrays, blood & urine test, etc. But when he started talking CAT scan, I was starting to get concerned. Especially when 3 large guys picked me up off of the scanner and put me on a gurney (up to this point I had been walking).
Final tally: 1 broken rib confirmed, 2 cracked ribs confirmed, 2 more cracked ribs probably, and a
RUPTURED spleen. As in I had torn the top of it off. Later I was told that I had lost ~2.5 liters of blood into my abdomen (hence the spasms). I was rushed into emergency surgery to have my spleen removed and spent the next 3.5 days in ICU.
Was finally moved out of ICU into a room (the hospital was gracious and had been putting my dad up in a room, so I was moved into there). Due to the
UNBELIEVABLE generosity of several people, my wife and daughter were able to fly down to visit me over the weekend. Sunday I was released, and the family from our church that had a house on Marathon and had made it available to My girls allowed me to spend Sunday there before beginning the ~480 mile ride home yesterday (thank-you Oxycodone!)
Reality check was after the surgery when the ER Doctor stopped by ICU to check on me. He told me that I would NOT have made the next hospital. Dad would have been driving a corpse and my wife and daughter would have been widow and orphan.
My message to all from this:
If you get hurt, do not try to be an iron man. Get checked out!!!
I'm going back to bed and cuddle up with Mr. Pain Med and let my ribs heal.
Talk to ya later (Dang glad to be able to say
THAT!),
Steve
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