the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

BLUF: Yeah, it hurts, but I'll be all right. 

 

There goes my modeling career. 

Mich took this shot Sunday night before they sewed me up. She feels I was altogether too chipper for my condition. For my part, I was happy to be alive.* 

* Also, I was in enough shock to not feel all the pain that was to kick in, full force, a few hours later. 

Here's what happened: 

Yes, I was tippling and hadn't had enough to eat, and in the course of events, I toppled down the basement stairs. 

We've lived here five years. I really should be used to the stairs by now. They are a bit narrow, but not nearly as bad as the ones in my Izmir apartment that I used to break my ankle three years ago. Mich was not far away, surfing the web and watching her shows on her computer. I was in the basement watching Veronica Mars (third season). I'd come up and made some coffee, and on my way back down I slipped on the second or third step. There are 16 steps to the bottom (I counted), and they are slate.*

* That is to say, unforgiving. 

I don't remember much from the time I fell until Mich was driving me back home at 4am. 

I thought I'd blacked out when I hit the bottom of the stairs, but Mich said I was immediately trying to stand up, saying, "I'm all right" (which is, weirdly, an almost autonomic response if you still have use of your tongue, even if a shark has just chomped your leg off). She said there was a pool of blood about 7-8 inches in diameter where I'd fallen, and when I sat up, blood gushed down my face. 

I'm sure it was very attractive. 

She fetched a rag for my head and I crawled back up the stairs on all fours, which isn't as comfortable as it was when I was 6 months old and still had baby fat, but it felt fairly safe under the circumstances. She quickly washed up the blood (thankfully, because it would have been an unholy mess had she waited until the next day), threw on a sweatshirt and shoes, tossed a sheet over the passenger side of her new car (also very smart, since I looked like the survivor of an Friday the 13th episode), and drove me to the nearest emergency room. 

At St. Francis, they cleaned the blood off my face (although you can still see some along my nose there) and stitched me up (ten stitches, I believe, and she did a very nice job). I was completely unaware of all the blood in my hair or on me, for that matter. I do remember Mich and the nurse making jokes about how good I'd look as a redhead.

At some point in there, they ran labs and did CAT scans, but I don't remember any of it. They found a fracture in the base of my skull, and thus ambulanced me over to Penrose Main where there was a neurologist on staff. He did tests to make made sure all my parts were working, then asked me those questions you never expect to seriously be asked since they only happen in the movies. What's today's date? (I guessed and was wrong.) Who's the president? Obama. How many fingers am I holding up? Three. Etc. Despite my having the date wrong (on any given day I have a 50/50 chance of getting it right, to be fair), I passed. After that, we waited about an hour for a specialist to bring me a cervical collar from Pueblo. 

The neurologist told me several times to call him the next day. I was to stay home and abed for 24 hours, after which I was to slowly resume normal activities (with the collar--or should we call it "the cone of shame"?--of course). 

Mich and I picked up some fast food on the way home. I asked her to stay at home with me the next day to keep an eye on me and help me as necessary. I was a little scared to be at home alone at that point. I also needed to make sure someone at work knew what was going on but I didn't want to freak anyone out, so I posted on the Facebook wall of a friend that I wouldn't be able to get to work that day because I'd broken my neck. She responded with "Got it." (Later, she sent me a text saying, "You were kidding, right?")

The next morning, Mich gently rubbed as much of the blood out of my hair as she reasonably could. I don't think she got it all, but we were negotiating around fresh stitches and a broken neck.* All in all, she did a great job, but the bathwater looked a bit like a suicide attempt (after she finished with me, she had to take a shower to get clean). 

* I say this because it's true, for all intents and purposes. I have a fractured right occipital condyle, which is that knob at the base of your skull where the tendon attaches to your first vertebra. A fraction of an inch over and I might be paralyzed or dead now. Sobering. Literally. 

From the time I woke until the finish of my bath when I went back to bed, I was running a fever, trembling so violently that it was difficult to stand up. Thankfully, when I woke again later, the fever had passed. I also had a couple of bouts of nausea, which also passed fairly quickly. These are scary in this situation as they are indicators of a concussion; thankfully, I've had no problems with them today. 

I contacted my primary care manager (my own doctor) yesterday morning to let him know what was going on, to request medication, and to ask him to put me on quarters for a couple of days, as I wasn't sure I'd be able to negotiate even getting into uniform for a while. I also set up a follow-up appointment with him. My doc granted me another 48 hours of quarters, thank heavens, and gave me a few days' worth of Percocet, for which I'm infinitely grateful. (The neurologist had told me to take Celebrex, which did nothing for me.) 

My dad called last night after I'd gone to bed. He was naturally a little freaked out. I called back this morning and we chatted for a couple of hours. It seems that falling down stairs and generally hurting ourselves is a family trait (and the rest of them don't even need alcohol to do it). We're just a danger to ourselves, it seems. Both of my folks have fallen down stairs. Daddy ran a backhoe up a tree a couple of years ago (how do you even do that?!). My big brother (Noel) turned a tractor over and managed to jump free in time to save his life. Wayne (my little brother) fell off a roof while doing construction work--twice, if I recall correctly. I'm not sure why we manage to do dumb stuff, but we do. 

We've also noticed that we don't bounce back the way we used to, much to our chagrin. 

Anyhow. I'm much better today. 

Y'all be excellent to one another. 

d