if the following entry does not make sense, blame it on my head injury. also i will not be using the shift key much as it is difficult to type with my left hand. i hope this story makes y'all laugh a little bit!
so this week has been a bit messed up, but today really topped the whole experience off for me. i have been sick with my FOURTH snotty miserable cold of the winter (why me?) since last Wednesday or so. as a result i did not feel like going out much in the wicked cold weather, but made some forays on behalf of my visiting brother's happiness. ... basically i froze my nose up for no good reason.
M had been gone for a funeral, and i was really looking forward to picking him up at 5:30 am Tuesday morning. as most of you may know, i work 4pm till 2am shifts. I decided to just stay up and clean the house and then go get M. (YEY!) I decided to take out the trash and recycle with me when i left for the airport. of course we had a wicked ice storm here and the area around the recycle bins was packed with thick uneven ice. in fact the plow had pushed extra snow which froze into even more ice into that very inconvenient spot. how am i supposed to take my trash out! i have been navigating this all week very carefully. my truck was warming up and i started carefully picking my way back towards clear pavement when i bit it pretty bad. i slipped on the ice at such an angle as to break the fall with the right side of my head, right arm and left inner knee/ankle. i heard this crunch and had hit the ground so hard that i thought it was the sound of my tooth breaking. it was actually my glasses. i got up and did my dumb ass adrenalin thing which is namely to search for my glasses, shake it off and get moving. (this would be how i ended up hiking the rest of the way down into the canyon on a fractured leg in 2003. i know, i am a tool. i just can't tell when i am hurt. i hear this is a good thing if i ever get shot though, as i will keep fighting.)
so i went and got my keys, went up to my apartment to find my extra set of glasses, and had a heck of a time finding them. i thought this was because i was flustered but apparently i just had a concussion. i drove to the airport and ended up bursting out in tears when the state trooper told me i had been sitting in one spot too long. this is not my normal reaction to things, i though i was just emotional from missing M, but it turns out that concussions make folks have emotional outbursts. when i went to drive in a circle around the airport, which i have done many times before, i somehow ended up going the wrong way and heading back into the tunnel to Boston. it turns out that i should not have been driving. but how can a person diagnose themselves with a concussion. i mean that my head was hurt, so how was i supposed to think logically? der.
so i finally picked up M. i was looking for him and called him to find out why he was not on the sidewalk. it turns out he was not only on the sidewalk, but waving at me. i stared at this dude waving at me and thought "is that M? he looks too small to be M." I finally figured out that it was indeed him and picked him up. I remember wanting to look at him and not being able to do so. i had been so excited to see him and forgot to hug or kiss him. apparently, concussions can do that to a person.
so we get home, and i am hurting all over, but mostly in my wrist. i was still pretty much ignoring M, who had decided that i must be harboring some deep secret and unable to face him. ha!
so i went to urgent care at my doctor's office today. My chief complaint was my wrist which hurts quite badly. of course the nurse practitioner ended up being way more disturbed about the blow to my head. when she asked me questions i felt fuzzy and stupid. she diagnosed me with a concussion and told me that i am not allowed to carry a gun, drive or work until Sunday. I am also not allowed to make any big decisions, like buy a house. (My boss told me to tell M to put off proposing till next week. HAHA!) I think M was pretty relived to know the reason i was being so odd.
I also got X-rays of my hand and head, to which we will know the results tomorrow. My hand is in a nifty splint that makes it so it does not hurt when i bump it or roll over in my sleep. The nurse thinks i make have fractured my zygomatic bone, which is the bone i would pick to get fractured if only so i could say zygomatic more often. it is one of my favorite words. She said i might get a black eye too.
My wrist still hurts the most. I guess that is why an EMT can not clear a spine when there is over riding pain any where else on a patient. all i thought about was my wrist, and not my head. i am lucky i did not get into an auto accident.
i went to bed super early tonight and woke up refreshed, but hurting all over at midnight. go figure!
and that is my story, for you.
btw~ M accepted a seasonal LEO job at .... ..... National Park!!!
