A Brief History

My name is Brittanie Mikel Lammers. I was born on February 20^th 1994 in Anchorage, Alaska. I was born in providence hospital and was then transferred to Alaska regional hospital. My parents are Orva Lorena Gore, she is known as Lorie, and Timothy Allen Lammers, he is known as Tim. I have a younger brother. His name is Logan Allen Lammers and he was born on September 6. 1996.  Anchorage is where I have lived all of my life except for my time in Rexburg, Idaho where I attend Brigham Young University Idaho.

            Both my brother and I were born prematurely and had to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit at Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. While we were there we were taken care of by several kind nurses and doctors. Several years after we were born my Grandma Sarah got a new next door neighbor. Whenever my Grandma Sarah would see her she would think, “I know her but I’m not sure where I know her from.” Ginger, the next door neighbor, would think the exact same thing whenever she saw my Grandma Sarah. One day Ginger and Grandma Sarah were talking and my Grandma found out that Ginger worked in the neonatal intensive care unit at Alaska Regional Hospital. My Grandma Sarah mentioned that she had two grandchildren who had spent some time there after they were born. Ginger was so excited because she remembered Logan and I. She wanted to see pictures and hear how we were doing. She wanted to see us and get to know us. I guess all of the nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit always wonder how the babies they helped take care of are doing and so Ginger brought pictures of Logan and I to work. Our pictures were on the board in the neonatal intensive care unit for quite some time. I remember playing pretend in Ginger’s yard and being babysat by her daughter. I also remember helping her in her backyard and spending time with her. A few years ago Ginger got in a car crash and afterword had a harder time getting around and taking care of her house both indoors and out. This caused her to move to an apartment where she doesn’t have to do yard work and if something go’s wrong in her apartment she doesn’t have to take care of it. After she moved we went to go see the nutcracker together at the PAC in downtown Anchorage. It was nice to spend time with her and to see her again. I don’t know how she is doing now but I am sure she still thinks of me and my family, as we think of her. 

When I was nine years old I fell off of a swing and broke both of my wrists when I caught myself. I was at home in my backyard playing on our swing set playground thing. My dad was mowing the lawn not far from where I was and came running when I fell. When he realized what had happened he called to my mom and my Mom, Dad, Brother, and I jumped in the car and drove to providence hospital. My dad was in the back seat of the car with me. His face was really pale, he was so scared. We had to go through construction on the way to the hospital and the construction workers let us through really fast because they heard my screaming. Going over all of the bumps really hurt my wrists! My Dad thought that only one of my wrists were broken but when we were going over the bumps I told him that they both hurt and that was when he realized that both of them were broken. His face went even pailer then it was before, if that is even possible. Mom pulled up to the emergency room and one of my parents jumped out of the car and got some emergency room people to come out and help me. They put me on a gernie and rolled me into the emergency room where my wrists were X-rayed and I was given pain killers. The X-rays showed that both bones in both wrists were broken. The bones in my left wrist had moved over and fallen in the space between the bones. One of the bones in my right wrist had fallen into the space and the other was barely still on the bone. While I was at the hospital all of my family that was in Alaska came to the emergency room. They were all really worried about me. When they came it was like they came in a wave. One minute they were elsewhere and the next they were all outside my hospital room in the ER. It was nice of them to come. It helped ease my stress a little. Not too much later I went into surgery and my bones were placed in their correct places and pins were put in my wrists to hold the bones in place. I stayed at the hospital overnight, or at least I think it was only one night but I do not remember if it was one or more than one. Either way I spent some time in the hospital and then went home.

 The day after I got home from the hospital my brother was playing on the exact same swing set playground thing with his friends. He was jumping from the tower, which was connected to a slide, to the ground. When he jumped he held his arms out and hit his wrist on the slide. He was crying because it hurt but said he was alright. We didn’t do anything about it because he said he was fine but whenever he would bump his wrist at all he would start to cry. This is not like my brother who is tough and hardly ever shows if he is in pain. So, a week to the day after I broke my wrists, my mother, grandmother, brother and I found ourselves in the first care waiting room to have my brother’s wrist X-rayed. I was sitting with my grandma Sarah in the waiting room when we heard my mother, who was with my brother back in the exam room, start to cry. My grandma then said, “It’s broken.” My brother had fractured his wrist. My mother now had two children with broken bones.  

Now to the day I get my wrists put in casts. I do not remember much about them putting the casts on but I do remember picking the color of the cast and what it looked like. I chose to have my casts be bright neon pink. They come in a white plastic package and they are rolled in a ball. The doctor wet the ball and then put the cast on my arm by unrolling the ball. I had a cast up to my shoulder on my left arm and up to my elbow on my right. This made writing difficult because I am left handed and had to write with my right hand. That was some very sloppy handwriting.

 Not long after I got my casts my brother went to get a cast put on his arm. When he went to get his cast he wanted a color, I’m not sure if it was green or blue but I do know that it was not pink. The doctor picked up a package of ready to use cast and my mother said something along the lines of, “are you sure that cast is (insert color Logan wanted)? My daughter just got casts and that package looks exactly like the package used for her casts and she got neon pink.” The doctor assured her it was the proper color but lone and behold when he opened the package the cast was neon pink. So my brother and I were not only partners in broken wrists, we had the same color casts too.

The fact that both my brother and I had broken wrists was hard on my parents but especially my mother. I vaguely remember, and have been told about, my mother taking my brother and I to the store to go grocery shopping like she always would. This was after both Logan and I had our casts. She got so many disapproving and questioning and mean looks that she told us we were leaving, even though Logan and I both noted that we had not finished our shopping yet. She said that she knew and that we were leaving. When she got home she told my father that she was never taking my brother and I anywhere in public together again until after we were out of casts. She never did, or at least not that I remember.

The day that I got my casts off was a very scary day for me. My brother had got his cast off a few days before and so I knew that they used some kind of saw to get it off. That thought scared me but Logan and mom reassured me that it could not cut your skin, although how I still don’t know, and Logan said that it didn’t hurt, it just tickled. That reassurance helped a little but I was still scared. The nurse who cut the casts off my arms was not a nice women, or at least not to me. I don’t know if it was because she was having a bad day or what but all I remember about her was her getting really frustrated with me and not being very understanding. I still shiver when I think of this day. Getting my casts off was terrifying. My brother lied, it did hurt and it is something I hope to never experience again. I also hope that none of my future children ever break a bone because when they get their cast’s off I will be more scared then they are because of this memory. I was crying loudly when my casts were cut off because I was scared, it hurt, and there was a layer of dead skin underneath the cast because it had been without air for so long. The skin itched and even though they told me not to itch my skin, I did it anyway. This only added to the pain. By the time they finally got my casts off my mom was ready to strangle that nurse. She had been mean and insensitive and my mother was ready to pounce. At about this time I remember my doctor walking in and saying, “I don’t think we will be taking the pins out today.” That just made me even more upset. Not because they weren’t going to take them out that day, but because they had considered it at all. I still do not understand why someone would take pins out of a person’s arm, especially a child’s, while they are awake. I can understand if it is somewhere where medical care is limited but not where it is not.

 A few days later I went in for day surgery and they took the pins out of my arms while I was asleep. I however had another bad experience in this case as well. When I had broken my wrists they gave me the anesthesia through an IV so I didn’t really notice it. I thought that would be what they would do when I went in for day surgery but I was wrong. They had a mask that they put over my face that pumped the anesthesia into the air so that I would fall asleep. The mask scared me and I didn’t like the smell so I fought them putting the mask on my face. They held the mask on my face until I fell asleep. That was scary and is now another thing I never wish to do again. I will now request anesthesia through an IV if I ever have to have surgery again so that I will not have to experience that again.