I broke my leg (well, broke my foot OFF my leg) in Maine… Read the saga here. (Now I need some help. Can you help me get home?)

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January 14, 2021 — Thursday
Last week seems like 1,000,000 years ago!

Hey friends! As you may have heard (I have been sharing all of this on Facebook, but not yet here on my website!) the following chain of events happened:

• My husband flew home (CoViD-19 carefully) to Oregon, but wasn’t 100% confident he could also safely bring home our two younger disabled sons without my help, so he left the boys with me for a bit longer.
• I then flew home to Oregon on New Year’s Eve (12/31/20) to bring the boys home (safely – which I did!) with the plan of returning to Maine for a week to finish all the work I had waiting for me there (here) a few days later… and then returning home to Oregon on my own either by flight (January 12th) or by car, depending on how work-things / and developments with my legal case shaped up.
• On January 5, 2021 I flew back to Boston, arrived around midnight, picked up a rental car, picked up my 18 year old son (so he could help me with my work in Maine for a few days) and drove up to the cabin where we had been staying in Maine (where all my work was waiting for me.)
• We got to the cabin around 2:00 a.m. and (as planned) I took a solid  – long – thorough (post-flight-to-wash-any-possible-CoViD-19-germs-off-of-me) shower.
• It was now about 2:30 a.m. and I walked into the kitchen to make sure we had something for breakfast in the fridge for the morning. I hollered to A.J. that we did not and we would have to go out in the morning to get some breakfast stuff. I was naked and wrapped in a towel, freshly out of the shower. 
• In a freak accident I slipped and fell in the kitchen (on the wet linoleum floor) and broke my foot off of my leg. I hollered bloody murder.
• My skin stayed in place but my bones were acting possessed and repeatedly trying to pop out of my skin – like a scene from the movie Alien. Neither A.J. nor I will ever forget this moment. I screamed to him that I broke my leg. He called 911 and the ambulance took me to the hospital and the rest is history.

Continue reading below the images! Plus there are GORY images below at the bottom of the article if you are inclined and interested in all of the details!

The photo below was taken at 3:02 a.m. on January 6, 2021

This is the spot where I fell. These lovely paramedics from Acton, Maine are pictured trying to keep me breathing & prevent me from going into shock.

The photo below was taken at 3:21 a.m. on January 6, 2021
All strapped in to be walked up the hill in the snow to the ambulance.

The photo below was taken at 3:24 a.m. on January 6, 2021
Safely in the ambulance!

The photo below was taken at 3:28 a.m. on January 6, 2021
The ambulance drives away. Needless to say, A.J. did not sleep that night!

The moral of the story:

• Always dry off thoroughly before leaving the bathroom.
• Always have a nice non-slippery bath mat.
• Linoleum floors suck!

More pictures… continue reading below the pictures.

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X-ray from 4:48 a.m. on January 6, 2021

The image below is from right after I arrived at the hospital, before they manually tried to manipulate my bones back in to place. I have what is called a Trimalleolar Fracture — check out the Wikipedia link here.

“Bonus”: When you go to the hospital these days they give you a CoViD-19 test! Guess what? I was negative for CoViD-19 (yay! This was my first ever CoViD-19 test!)

Picture below taken 8:30 a.m. on January 7, 2021 – at the doctor’s office
This is what the nurse said would need to happen:

Picture below taken 8:35 a.m. on January 7, 2021 – of the monitor at the doctor’s office.

Photo annotated by me! This is what my leg looked like AFTER they pushed it back together but BEFORE surgery! Look at all the different broken parts in that one bone! (#1 with the arrow).

I then had surgery on the 8th of January

In surgery they tried (and hopefully succeeded?) to put all my bones back together!?  

Because the cabin where we had been staying (where all my work was and where the accident occurred) was at the bottom of steep and icy driveway followed by a flight of uneven stone stairs (driveway image below from today – 1/14/2021) and was not wheelchair accessible, I have been staying in a handicap / wheelchair accessible hotel room since the morning of January 7th (so… 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, &14 of January so far – 8 unexpected nights in a hotel room -at $75 – $110 a night! Gah! – but thank you Priceline for the discounted rates!)

Here’s a picture of the driveway at the cabin today.The picture below is from after surgery on January 9th at 8:17 a.m.
That’s the surgeon’s signature on my knee!
Continue reading below the image.

I cannot get around at all without help now.

While I was given as set of crutches in the emergency room (before the surgery), as it turns out I couldn’t get around on crutches AT ALL. My good leg (the non-broken one) is actually normally my BAD leg… because I have a torn quadricep above my left knee and so I cannot support any weight on that leg – pretty much at all. A friend loaned me some $ to get a wheel chair! (Not covered by insurance of course) #YayTeam! Thanks for the help friends!

Photo below of my new wheelchair: January 10, 2021!

My 18 year old son A.J. has been heroically taking care of me during all of this (missing his entire winter break from college!) When we got the new wheelchair he exclaimed (in true A.J. fashion): “Hey Mom! It has a pocket for sheet music in the back!”

January 13, 2021 – Yesterday, Wednesday

Yesterday I had my post-surgical evaluation. Two photos (one (not-gory) photo + the most recent post-surgery X-ray photo) are below, but all of the gory detail photos of my leg (which I also posted on Facebook) are down at the bottom of this article (so you can avoid them if you like, by not scrolling all the way to the end!).

Photos from about 9:38 a.m., Wednesday – January 13, 2021

My

Look at all that hardware working to put my leg and ankle back together.

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Photos below: New full cast! + New cast on the ride home (back to the hotel!)
Continue reading below the images.

And now the plan, moving forward….

I have been told it will likely be at least 8 more weeks before I can START trying to walk again and it will likely be as long as 6 months before all the swelling has gone away. The prognosis of walking normally again is fully up in the air. Everything is up in the air now really (even my mediation in my big legal case – which was originally set for today – has been postponed until I know more from the doctors – specifically whether or not they will allow me to travel, and when), however I have come up with a tentative plan (pending the “o.k.” from the doctor!)

• Tonight we are headed to Boston (IF we can fit all our crap in the car!), where I will stay in a handicap hotel room in a hotel right next to my son’s apartment – so he can continue to help me over the next few days but get back to his school routine and his “life already in progress.”
• We have a follow up appointment with surgeon in Maine on 1/20, so will likely be driving up here on the 19th, spending the night in the “meh” hotel where we have been for the past week, and then seeing the doctor in the morning of the 20th and then driving back to Boston. I generally really LIKE a good “Holiday Inn Express” but it seriously gets old after 8 days straight!
• Then, a friend from Oregon (Angela T.) has offered to come help me. The plan is that she will (hopefully) take a flight to come be with me in Boston on January 21st.
• Then, together, Angela and I will take the Amtrak train home (if doctor allows it). The train ride would be January 22, 2021 – to January 25, 2021.

To make this happen I need to come up with at least $1,600 – in addition to all the $ I am spending on wheelchair accessible hotel rooms for this first chunk of time (The $1,600 is for Angela’s flight, for a room for both of us in the train home, so I can keep my foot elevated, stay CoViD-19 safe and rest properly – AND move about properly to avoid deep vein thrombosis and the related possibility of DEATH (gah!) [and for other costs along the way!]

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Here’s my request for today!

To raise the money so I can get home safely (if the doctor allows me to travel when we go in on 1/20!)… does anyone have the capacity to pay to hire me now for some unspecified date later in 2021? For a home consultation or phone consultation? If I confirmed just TWO prepaid home consultations that would cover the costs of my long journey home! TIA!

(UPDATE 1/16/2021: Thanks to the generous support of a friend and long-time supporter of my work, I plan to be heading home by train next Friday — doctor’s orders permitting! I am so thankful for each and every one of you — the readers of my site. I couldn’t continue to do what I do without your support — in so many different ways! The work here on LeadSafeMama.com is truly a partnership and a collaborative effort.)

In terms of future work trips – I’m looking at possible future work trips to California (both Northern and Southern, possibly a road trop) and also possibly to Hawaii as soon as I can walk again! (With CoViD-19 safe home consults per the links below.)

• Home Consultations / Speaking Engagements – link (need updating but you get the idea!)
• Phone / Zoom Consultations – link
• Chip-In – link

Thanks in advance for any help that can be provided! As always, I truly appreciate it.

The other challenges I am working on.. 

• Once I get home to Portland I will likely need a wheelchair accessible place to stay – so if you have a lead  (pronounced *leed*!) there — I would love to hear about that too! I am also looking for options in California since I could get work done in California (which is relatively close to home, at least compared to Maine) and that might be a more hospitable environment for me to recover (especially since my home is still under construction as a result of the roof leak several months ago — and we have no kitchen! I am publishing a video about that later today!)
• Once I can walk again I am considering a move to Hawaii (to the Big Island) with my boys, until the pandemic is over. This would likely be for a year or two (12 – 24 months, depending on quite a few factors) – and would give me the opportunity to write AND to do continue to do remote consultations AND to do local outreach events in Hawaii…. If anyone has any leads there, that would also be great. The main reason we want to do that is so that my 16 year old son will have the possibility of an internship (CoViD-19 safe) at one of the observatories there (this is something we have one or two leads for but welcome more!)

Thanks everyone! Stay safe out there (safer than I have been at least… don’t break any limbs — it sucks!)

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama

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For those new to this website:

Tamara Rubin is a multiple-federal-award-winning independent advocate for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety, and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children (two of her sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005). Since 2009, Tamara has been using XRF technology (a scientific method used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for toxicants (specifically heavy metals — including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony, and Arsenic). Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February 2023 (March 2023 print edition).

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Here are all the gory pictures – taken Wednesday, January 13, 2021
around 9:40 a.m.