How Not to Spend A Friday Night

The evening was winding down and it was time to give Toby his pill. He was huddled in the corner of the sofa, down from the mother.

I approached him slowly, casually, acting as though I had no interest whatsoever in him. It's a skill I'm still perfecting but have been pretty lucky with.

Until last night.

I walked past him, reached back and grabbed. Toby pulled forward and out of my grasp with such force that it caught me off guard. I tilted, I wobbled, and then, unlike a Weeble, I DID fall down. The unfortunate part is that I was still trying to keep my balance. Had I just let myself go and fallen, I'd have hit the floor and only the floor.

Instead, I almost righted myself. Almost. And then I collapsed like a ton of bricks, my head forcefully striking the corner of the hall table. I didn't lose consciousness. Instead, I sat in the floor and ... laughed. For some reason, I do this sometimes when something initially hurts really bad.

But then the pain got really bad and I whimpered a bit. I instinctively put my hand on my head and when I pulled it away, it was full of blood. For 15 minutes, blood continued to pour down my face despite my best efforts to smash a cloth over it. If my hair wasn't so thick, it would have been worse. It worked as something of a mop to catch a lot of the blood.

It quickly became clear that a trip to the ER was inevitable. That made me laugh because the mother and I frequently joke about near accidents under stupid circumstances by saying: "Try explaining THAT at the ER." Well, I was trying to medicate my cat when ...

The parking lot was jammed though there weren't many people in the waiting room. It took nearly an hour to get seen. A nurse came out and poked around, gave me a fresh bandage to hold on my head and declared that I was OK. Still, the blood kept pouring.

I finally made an initial stop at the treatment part. The nurse was kind and consoling but her examination made the blood stream. I got a bigger glob of bandages and a wet cloth to wipe off my arm where the blood was now pooling. It was horrifying because I'm just not good with blood. Especially when it's mine.

I was taken to a treatment room ... where I sat for another 45 minutes. Finally, a doctor came in. His bedside matter left a lot to be desired. He roughly pushed my hair aside and grumbled, "OOOOOOh. Good one!" Good? Really? Not if you're me!

I asked about my injury and he said I had a gash about so big, holding his thumb and forefinger about 3 inches apart. "We'll get you washed, numbed, barbered, fixed and out of here," he said nonchalantly.

Wait. Barbered? Did he just say barbered? I asked. "Just a little," he said.

An orderly came in with a Bic razor and began shaving a patch atop my head. He grazed what had to be the wound and I nearly came off the stretcher. He left and returned with a battery-powered shaver and I watched in horror as clumps of hair fell to my side. "Hey," I said. "I'd rather not be bald, please. The Sinead look never quite caught on." He laughed, finished and disappeared.

He came back in and set a few packets of things that looked like curtain brackets on the counter and slunk back out. A female nurse came in about 20 minutes later to retrieve supplies from a cabinet. She glimpsed the packets and said, "Looks like you're getting staples."

Staples? In my head?!

That's exactly what happened. The three needles to numb me were horrific and the first staple was hell. I didn't feel the next four. Three and a half hours later, $50poorer and armed with a medical staple remover, I was finally done. They had initially wrapped an Ace bandage, holding a bandage in place, over my head and under my jaw. That slid off before I was done checking out. The kindly nurse from the initial consult redid it, tucking it under my hair like a bizzare headband. I was able to remove it this morning.

I have to contact a doctor on Monday, either mine or the surgeon they've referred me to. The staples will require a visit in a week to 10 days to remove them. I am not looking forward to it.

The worst part is that I have to wait until tomorrow morning to wash my hair. Earlier, I was finally able to try to wash out some of the blood. Disgusting! And that doesn't address what's atop my head, near the gash.

All in all, I have to say, it's not the way to spend a Friday night!