How Jana Broke Her Ankle

At the end of August, two months into our road trip up the east coast, Jana broke her ankle. Despite what she often tells people, she did NOT injure herself kicking a shark in a heroic attempt to rescue an innocent swimmer from its jaws.

She stepped off of a skateboard going at a snail’s pace, as she had done plenty of times before, and her ankle snapped. In three places. That’s all.

As Camila’s father who is an orthopaedic surgeon said when he heard about the fracture: what?!? He had assumed that such an intense injury must have happened very dramatically. He expected her to be in pretty bad shape—deep cuts and other broken bones—and couldn’t believe that Jana had sustained that kind of fracture while otherwise emerging unscathed. A trimalleolar ankle fracture is one of the worst things that can happen to your ankle.

Up until that moment, we had been relaxing in Airlie Beach, a coastal town in the Whitsundays.

Despite what occurred here, Airlie Beach is still one of our favourite spots in Australia.

I was laying on the grass with Camila by the lagoon reading when a lifeguard showed up and asked if either one of us had a sister who had been skateboarding.

Jana was sitting on the ground chatting with another lifeguard when we got there.

“It’s broken,” she told us. “I heard it snap.” But she was surprisingly calm and collected. She was more concerned about what this would mean for our road trip than about the pain.

Despite Jana’s foot sticking out from the rest of her leg at an unnatural angle, the lifeguards didn’t seem to believe it was broken. I think Jana’s composure was messing with everyone, making them mistrust what they were seeing.

Even Camila was doubtful. “You’d be screaming right now if it was broken,” she said.

***

In the tiny triage room in the hospital, I stared at the medical student, dumbfounded. She had just called me over to get my opinion.

“What does her ankle normally look like?” she asked. She had already asked Jana which ankle was the injured one. Now she wanted me to confirm that the ballooned, crooked ankle was indeed out of the ordinary.

“You know what her ankle looks like on a regular day,” the medical student prompted. “It’s not like this usually?”

“No…” I said. I was pretty sure it wasn’t typical for Jana’s foot to stick out sideways.

The student made some notes, then looked up at Jana. “Just to confirm. It’s your left ankle?" she said, glancing at Jana’s right ankle, which was actually the broken one.

Jana blinked at her in horror.

Luckily, Jana was soon whisked away to an examination room and surrounded by medical professionals who seemed to know what they were doing.

She refused all pain meds offered—and there were lots of offers—saying she would rather wait for when it really started hurting. She chose instead to distract herself by holding elaborate conversations with the doctors about the TV shows they were currently watching.

About an hour later, Jana was finally given ketamine to make her unconscious while the team completed a reduction procedure. The procedure involved a bunch of resident doctors pulling her foot while the main doctor adjusted her ankle.

Side note: Scrubs is the most realistic medical show out there, according to the doctor who pushed Jana’s ankle back in place.

They left me in the room with Jana as the drug wore off. Everyone had left except for the medical student who’d had trouble in triage identifying which foot was problematic.

Pure panic flared in Jana’s eyes when she became conscious and saw the student.

Whereas un-drugged Jana is generally sensitive to people’s feelings, high Jana didn’t bother concealing her doubt in the student’s medical proficiency.

“Can you get a real doctor?” Jana insisted when the student told her that the hot feeling in her leg was normal. Jana spoke slowly, enunciating each word, as if it was the student who was barely conscious.

When the real doctor assured Jana that everything was indeed normal, Jana smiled at her foot and fist-bumped the doctor for making it face the right way again.

Then, as the drug slowly wore off but not quite, she apologized to the doctor for the fist-bump, because she was absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent NOT a fist-bumper.

***

Jana spent the night at Proserpine Hospital, and the next day we took her to Mackay, about a two hour drive away, where they would fix her ankle by putting in plates and bolts.

An exhausting five days and two surgeries later, we made the three hour drive back to where we had been staying.

Although it took multiple trips (for those of us without broken ankles) to get these flowers packed up for the drive home, they were very much appreciated. They brightened up our Airbnb for the rest of our time there. Thanks Ala-Dean!

***

After the injury, we spent a month in the Whitsundays and then another month chilling on Magnetic island.

Jana has gone through several stages of the recovery process since then, most notable of which I have dubbed her “Wallaby” stage. Just in case you were wondering, Jana does not like being referred to as a marsupial.

Because she was not allowed to put any weight on her foot for almost two months, and because of her tendency to misplace her crutches, she was most often spotted hopping around on one foot with her hands stuck out in front of her as a safety measure.

Rock wallabies at Nelly Bay on Magnetic Island, where we spent a month. Can you see the resemblance?

After two-and-a-half months, Jana is almost back to walking again.

Jana's cast evolution since the end of August.

The past couple of months have come with their share of pain, difficulty, and stress, but we always worked together to see the positives (not too hard when you're living in paradise!) and to consistently practice gratitude along our journey.

So even though Jana didn't rescue a desperate tourist from the jaws of a hungry shark, her strength and grace throughout this chapter of our travels has been commendable nonetheless.