Clumsy

Warning!!!  This is not a post for the faint of heart.  There is honest-to-God blood and gore.  If blood and gore give you the creeping heebies...stop now.  I have even included a picture of a kitten in a sack to give you the opportunity to stop before you see any of the blood and gore:

This is Daisy Fay in my vodka sack.  Why is it that the liquor store is the only store that still uses these kinds of paper sacks?  The cats love them.
 
Okay...I assume the rest of you can handle what's coming next.

A few posts ago, I alluded to the fact that I had injured myself and promised I’d give the details of the how and why later.  Shortly thereafter, Jenn and I spent a weekend of debauchery (complete with pirates!) in Atlanta, and I had to document that for prosperity before coming back around and telling you guys what I’d done.  Also?  My complete spaziness is a little discomforting to share.

Did you know that once upon a time and, oh…many, many pounds ago I was a dancer?  Well, neither weight gain nor time have been kind to my once graceful bearing.

And sometimes I forget that I am no longer coordinated and I attempt to do complex things outside my limitations.  Like walk and talk at the same time.

Walking down the stairs leading out of my office and into the parking lot, I was yammering away at Jeff when a sudden spazmatic attack afflicted me and I forgot that the spacing between each of the steps was EXACTLY THE SAME. I mean…I’d pretty effortlessly traversed the first four with no difficulty.  Suddenly, inexplicably, on the fifth step I stomped down in mid-air, totally missing the second-to-last step and went ass over tea-kettle.  Fortunately, my left elbow was there to take the brunt of the fall.

I got myself picked up and dusted off…went back inside and found our Safety dude and asked him to bandage me up.  At this point, it wasn’t bleeding much and I think I was still too stunned to really feel it.  And here’s the thing…You can’t REALLY see your own elbow.  All I knew is that I wasn’t seeing too much blood and that I was intent on getting myself and my bruised ego back to the house. (There is nothing like falling on your ass in front of ANYONE for a good ole dose of humility).  Jeff and the safety guy kept exchanging worried looks but I wasn’t paying them any attention.  I promised to clean and bandage it more thoroughly when I got home.

We got home, I changed into lounge-y clothes and we ate dinner.  After we ate, I undid my bandaging in preparation for a really good cleaning of my scrape…when my daughter suddenly shrieked “Holy crap, Mom!  You need to go to the hospital.”

“You really should go look in the mirror at it, babe.” Jeff added.

Huh?

So yeah, I went to look in the mirror and there was a dime-sized HOLE in my elbow…possibly down to the bone.

“Fine.” I said, “but I’m not going to the emergency room. C.A.R.E.S. (our local doc-in-a-box) is still open. We’ll go there.”

I trudge back upstairs to put my bra back on…because I was already in lounge-y mode.  Lounge-y mode NEVER includes a bra.  Anyhoo…I get upstairs, take off my shirt, put on my bra…and then I do it again.  I try to multitask…I am attempting to walk through a doorway while pulling my shirt back down over my head. Whack!!  Yep. Right on the injured elbow.  Up until then, it really had not hurt that bad…but now it starts to throb.

We get in the car and Jeff drives me to C.A.R.E.S…we’re there in about 3 minutes.  It’s really close. I get out of the car and go to sign in while Jeff gathers my stuff (purse, Kindle, etc.) because in the 3 minutes to get from home to the doctor, my elbow has woken up and is SCREAMING at me.  I’m signing in when someone notices that I also happen to be dripping blood EVERYWHERE.  Two nurses immediately usher me back to the trauma room and try to staunch the flow.  On the plus side, I am seen by a doctor immediately!  Yay!  On the downside, he orders X-rays to make sure I haven’t chipped my funny bone and a tetanus shot since I haven’t had one since oh…college.  He also lets me know in no uncertain terms that we are talking stitches here. Boo!

Back in X-ray, I see my good friend Kayla is in charge… “Oh good Lord, Marianne, what have you done?”  Ever the efficient nurse, Kayla whips me in and out of X-ray and comes back with us to the trauma room to stitch me up.  Of course, her and Jeff are giving me grief the whole time.  When she sees that Jeff is trying to sneak a picture around the doctor…she takes the phone from him and gets a really good shot of the gaping wound before it’s stitched up:

And after:

Ah, much, much better. And actually, that's the best it's looked since. By the next day, the bruising around it got going...and then it got a little gooey-looking...and then it got a little scabby-looking.

But finally, the stitches came out last night (Kayla again, yay! She takes good care of me).  I'm probably going to have some serious scarring...but hey, like I said earlier...you can't really look at your own elbow.


I just realized that when I share on Facebook, the thumbnail shows the last picture on a post...so I'm copying Daisy Fay down here too.  She's still so stinkin' cute.