Monday, January 14, 2008

Boring Old JoyZeeBoy

Oh, I could lie and say to you that I haven't blogged in forever because I didn't have anything to talk about, but that would be inaccurate.

A week ago last Friday I fell in the tub (the non-slip tub mat went one way and I went the other, face down, into the side of the tub). I gashed open my forehead pretty badly. The blood started flowing (spurting) immediately. I felt numb. I felt pain. I was alone and in deep shit.

I thought "Okay, don't panic. Stop the blood" and so I grabbed a washcloth and jammed it to my forehead. The left eye-lid almost immediately swelled up and slammed shut, but I could still see (sort of) out of my right eye. I managed to get out of the tub and pat myself dry. I went to the bedroom and started calling people in the area. I couldn't get hold of anyone. I was getting more scared. I got dressed (with one hand, the other was still holding the washcloth to my forehead). Finally, I became rational enough to call 911. The ambulance came pretty quickly, along with a local cop.

The ride to the hospital went quickly and they whizzed me into the ER where I was quickly examined by the triage nurse. It was a slow morning, thank God. The blood had stopped by now but the doctor decided to re-open the wound in order to do a good job of cleaning it and stitching it up. She put in about 20 stitches. While doing that she ordered up a CAT scan of my head to make sure there was nothing in there (there isn't). By now a very dear friend of mine had shown up to be with me (and he was -- he's a very good friend) and, upon discharge from the ER, around 10:30, he took me to the opthalmologist the ER had arranged for me to see.

The eye doc was jammed and we had to wait awhile. The other patients all looked nervously my way until they realized I was staring back at them, upon which they buried their noses in magazines. I must've been a pretty scary sight, even though they'd cleaned me up at the hospital. They didn't cover any of the damaged areas, and by now my left eyelist had swollen to the size of a half an orange.

The doc finally saw me, lifted the lid and looked underneath, shone lights into both eyes, had me look up, down, sideways, etc., dilated the eye and then we did it all again. He pronounced my eye safe and said that the bones surrounding it "had done their jobs" and kept it protected during my fall.

On the way home we stopped to get a prescription for some antibiotics filled and, finally, I was home by 3:45 p.m.

Luckily the downstairs neighbhors offered to help and I took them up on it. The picked up some Chinese for me that night (I was starving by now, not having eaten all day) and the next day took me on a shopping expedition to drop off laundry and dry-cleaning with several quick trips to Target and the Super-Fresh.

I spend the entire week at home, bored out of my mind.

I did watch the entire season 3 DVD collection of "Lost" so I'm caught up on that.

On Thursday I got the stitches removed, my left eyelid had moved up to merely "half-mast" and the cardiac doctor pronounced my ticker good for "another half million miles." He also put my mind at ease about the swollen broken toe and the eyelid.

During all this time I just didn't have the oomph to post anything. I felt foolish for having fallen and, aside from that and the NH vote, there wasn't much to talk about.

The bottom, though, came last night, when I realized that there weren't going to be any Golden Globes awards show.

Now THAT was depressing.

Mom and dad are gonna crap themselves when I step off that plane in Ft. Myers this coming Thursday. I still haven't told them what happened to me -- and right now I look like I was in a barroom brawl!

This sort of thing never happened to me when I was drunk.

4 comments:

Bev Sykes said...

So glad to see you posting again! Look on the bright side. Now you'll have a dashing scar (eventually) to make you even more appealing.

JoyZeeBoy said...

It's just a "V" between my eyebrows. Six months from now you won't even see it.

I really wanted one of those Tom Berenger in "Platoon" type scars that runs down your cheek. The kind that women AND men all swoon over.

A manly man's scar.

Mary said...

I'm very glad you're okay.

JoyZeeBoy said...

Thank you, Mary.

I'm grateful that it turned out as well as it did. I know that it could've been a lot worse.