the wall (obviously, since that is what it is attached to) and the kitchen table, meaning you have to kind of move your head to the side to avoid it. No problem if you're a normal person moving at normal speed in normal frame of mind. I am none of these. So I'm looking for Saydee, their chihuahua-ita, to put her away before I go, and she runs into their bedroom so I go after her and then she runs back out into the kitchen. Well, I'm such a fun uncle, I run after her to play, but am trying also not to step on her, so I'm looking down. You can probably guess what happened.
WHAM! I ran into the corner of the shelf (I didn't realize it until later, or maybe even the next day, but just that alone gave me a good little cut and a HUGE goose-egg), and immediately ducked my head like you do when you hit it on something, and crouched, stopping. Everything happened so fast. I heard the contents on the shelf rocking. I heard them fall. One of the vases miraculously stayed on. The other two did not, but I broke both of their falls (and one of their falls broke me...). The large, square, heavy, ceramic vase (farthest left) came careening down and landed on one of its points in my head. Yes, IN, not ON. I yelled, but did not swear (yes, I am quite proud of this). It was quite the man yell. Although its fall (and my head) had been broken, it hit the ground and shattered. I somehow managed to catch the other smaller green vase with my right foot/leg and it rolled off that onto the carpet and didn't break. I might be a ninja, but I'm not sure. This of course all happened in, say, 1 second. So I'm down on all fours, trying to take in the pain and assess the situation. The first thought I had was about the broken vase and needing to replace it. Then the blood started to fall. I was a little confused at first. Is this blood? From my head? Will there be a lot? I sat there for a minute, watching it drip onto the kitchen floor. The longer I waited, the more I realized it wasn't about to stop anytime soon. I also had to pause to admire the beauty of my rich, deep and dark red blood--my it is some beautiful stuff! Admire with me:
Next thought: go see if the cut is huge-big. So I run into the bathroom, catching blood in my hands so I don't get it on the carpet, and try to get a look at the cut. Here is what I see:
Cool picture, no? I can't see the cut because it's on the back of my head, but I decide I'd better go get it stitched up because I'm sure bleeding a lot (I dumped the handful of blood I had caught on the way into the sink and had been filling the sink up with my blood while I looked at the cut), and who knows how long I have before I lose enough blood to where it wouldn't be safe to drive. So I run and grab a cloth and now I have to find Saydee (who had run off when I yelled my man yell and when the vase CRASHED! to the floor). Saydee is nowhere to be found. Not upstairs, not downstairs... Somehow, I've felt very calm through this whole ordeal and felt less in a hurry than I had be to get out the door to the temple (I mean, I had the presence of mind to take pictures during the whole thing...). Finally, she comes out from under a couch, tail tucked between her legs, eyes downcast like she must be the culprit of all this mayhem. I get her put away and head out the door, cloth to my head.
So now I'm driving to the hospital, cloth to my head, trying to
drive, trying to call the temple and tell them I won't make my shift, and trying to text Russell to tell him that if he comes home and finds a shattered vase and a pool of blood on the floor and in the sink to not be worried. I got some funny looks from other drivers. Who can blame them? I was a sight to see.
So I get to the hospital and the lady behind the desk is with an older couple and she's checking them in. I wait patiently (no pun intended), and suddenly the old couple stops talking and they just look at me. She looks at me and doesn't say anything. Her mouth just kind of hangs open for a second. I say something helpful like, "I cut my head," and she asks, "Are you ok?" I reply that I think I am and she can tell that I'm pretty composed, so she just asks me to fill out the form and she'll be with me in a minute. She checks me in and then, of course, I get to wait. Before I leave her little office, she says, "Oh! The bleeding may have already stopped, but you can have some of these, and she hands me a little stack of gauze pads."
So now I'm in the waiting room, sitting across from this old couple looking like this:
Ok, so I wasn't wearing that exact facial expression, but they probably thought I was...
This old cowboy is thoroughly disgruntled about the waiting and says, quite loudly, "That's why I hate comin' to this damn place, you always gotta wait so damn long." The emphasis is not added by the author. I thought that was great fun, but tried not to laugh. Mostly, they just looked at me like I might be dying. But they still wanted in first.
Finally, I get in, and everyone looks at me with those same wide eyes as I pass by. Maybe because I have blood running across my face, maybe because I'm walking around just fine and smiling at them and that just looks funny, maybe because its American Fork and they mostly see the old folks like who I was sitting across from. I pass a large group of staff around a computer (5-6 people), and their conversation stops and they all just look at me, same wide-eyed stare. I say, "It's not as bad as it looks," and they laugh and go on with their work (this is important because most people don't think I'm very funny, but apparently those who are in the medical field DO think I'm funny and this just makes me want to be a doctor even more...). The next few minutes involve my head getting a good cleaning by the nurse and me getting to retell the story a dozen times to her and all the other people who come by wanting to know what happened. My guess is these people don't see much in their emergency room. Probably a lot of Jake's and Bertha's who want some damn medication for their damn aches. The doctor comes in and says he's going to put one staple in my head. I, being the tough, perhaps-ninja man that I am, refuse anesthetic and he takes out his little staple gun and POOM! staples my head.
Me. Staple Head.
[it turns out that your scalp has very few nerve endings {this is probably why, besides the fact that they're so darn huge in comparison to the rest of their bodies, little babies and kids are always banging their heads into everything} and so the stapling really didn't hurt. [For all of you who are thinking what I was thinking, the answer is yes, scalping actually wasn't all that painful.] The first staple didn't go in right apparently, so he had to get that one out, and put in another one. Finally, I was set to go. I could shower and all that and was to come back in a week and get it out.
The aftermath: The good news is that I got the vase back together. Look at this skill!:
Before........
....a bottle of super glue and 30 minutes later..... BAM! ......After!
I got the staple out a little while ago. I had tried to tug it out myself, to no avail. I tried a pair of scissors, to see if I could cut it in the middle and then pull it out--also fruitless (though not painless). It took 5 seconds for the lady at the hospital to get it out with her special staple-getter-outer tool, and I got to keep my staple, complete with the pee cup she gave it to me in.
Here's the kicker: my parents just called me to tell me they got a bill for $400 from the hospital! $400?! That was sure an expensive staple!! Good thing I got some gauze and a pee cup out of it!
Other thoughts: I'm SURE the procedures done did NOT justify the million years that doctor spent in medical school training. I'm pretty sure he could show me how to staple a wound in 5 minutes and forever more, I would be a proficient head stapler. I AM sure, however, that all those years in medical school is why that bill was $400. (all the insurance mumbo-jumbo is to blame as well, but I won't get started on that. This has been long enough) My point is that it sure seems that so much of what we do in such a SPECIALIZED industry (medicine) could be better taught and trained through apprenticeship. Like in the old days. You want to be a blacksmith? Well, you become an apprentice to one, and when he feels you're good and ready, you get a little certificate or whatever and you get to start your own business. Why can't things run like that now (I know the answer to that question, and there's good reason, but it's just too bad)? You want to be a hand surgeon? Well, let's skip years and years and thousands and thousands of dollars, and get you to help out some surgeon for eight years. You can learn everything from him, read lots of books on that specific discipline and you'll come out ready to go. Sigh... Oh well. Maybe someday I'll be the one charging that same doctor $400 just to give him some damn medication. :)
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