Harborview

As it turned out four separate teams of Harborview doctors got to work on me right away: a separate team for each foot, a team for the wrists and forearms, and another team for the backbone.  Subsequently the teams got together and awarded me the dubious honor of having presented the greatest amount of repairable injuries in a single incident short of amputation (in the last 12 months). I think they thought of me as kind of an interesting jigsaw puzzle.

I was in ICU for the first week and for the first round of surgeries where the teams put things back more or less in the right location.  I tuned out when they started talking about bone degloving and things that should be in my shins ending up in my heels. The second week at Harborview I was out of ICU and going through the second round of surgeries where the teams were installing rods and plates and screws and all kinds of neat stuff making final structural placements as accurately as possible.

Harborview is our trauma center for the Pacific Northwest and the doctors there put people back together again all the time and they're really good at it. Another thing they are really good at is understanding when the body begins giving back real sensation and knowing when to dial up the pain meds.  Yes, I did experience some pain, but far less than you might imagine. The nurses keep asking you what's your pain level and they make adjustments based on your response. Their goal is to back down the pain meds in a reasonable amount of time and get you ready to transition to a convalescence facility so they can make room for the next trauma patient.

Harborview is definitely a place to get fixed and not to convalesce. The four separate teams have an overarching goal of achieving the best outcome for their assigned limb and they don't have time to coordinate amongst themselves so you're constantly getting pulled out of bed for one thing or another. The net result is an optimal surgical outcome but customer service isn't the greatest.  Also the pace of the place is non-stop 24/7. The intercom is constantly blaring code red this and code blue that, or Dr. so-and-so hit your call button, or nurse X please go to room Y stat!   It's exhausting.

After two weeks at Harborview I was finished with surgeries, off of intravenous pain meds, and more or less stable and ready to transition to Anderson House in Shoreline, a full-on nursing / convalescence facility.