| Sac of Warm on My Ass |
[Jan. 11th, 2009|10:33 am] |
Alice also wrote a brief synopsis here
So on Friday, Jan. 9th, I got up in the morning, downed four raw eggs, collected all of my books/clothes and headed off to school on my bicycle. This was between 6-6:40 in the morning. About twenty minutes later I had passed Dorothea Dix Hospital, about 2 and a half miles from my apartment. Eventually, Western Blvd. becomes MLK Jr. St. and becomes a busy 3-laneish road comparable to a small highway.
As I cycle uphill I hear a THA-DUNK from behind me. After what seemed about 40 minutes staring at the morning sky I finally landed with a skid directly onto my bicycle, mostly, face first. At this point I don't think I knew exactly what happened to me, but I felt a sharp pain in my left hip. Cars whizzed by, and I finally realized where I was, and what had happened. I start to panic, but I still can't move from the shock. I start to scream, yell for help... anything to get anyone to stop, or at least call 911. I collect myself enough to scoot as far away from the road as I possibly can (there is quite a lot of space on the shoulder, so I feel safe enough) and reach into my pocket. I begin to debate if I should call an ambulance... even though I'm pretty sure my hip is broken and who knows what kind of injuries I sustained that I haven't felt yet because of adrenaline. I call Alice first, the call goes something like this...
Kyle: Help me! Someone ran over me!
Alice: What?
Kyle: I think someone hit me, my hip is broken!
Alice: Calm down baby, where are you?
Kyle: MLK past Western, where that bridge is.
Alice: I'll be there soon, have you called 911?
Kyle: No, I don't want an ambulance.
Alice: Aww, baby, please call them for at least a police report.
Kyle: Okay.
Alice: I love you, I'll be there soon.
I think Alice's voice with the combination of adrenaline entering my system calmed me down significantly, because when I called 911 I was very coherent and matter of fact. "Yeah, I was hit by a car while riding my bike... I'm okay, but I'd like to file a police report."
Someone finally stops right before the police arrive. They ask me if I need any help, or if they should call 911. I've collected myself enough to know that they can't do anything to help at the moment... but I'm just that FINALLY after about 100 cars or so that passed me on a busy street, that someone decided someone lying in a heap next to their bicycle, helmet, a bookbag, lights, and scattered headlight fragments may just be worth being late for work for.
The police arrive, Alice and Sarah run up the hill right after the two police officers tell me that if I can't move, they have no choice but to call an ambulance. I give in, knowing that if they didn't check for certain I'd be sure that something was incredibly wrong with my body. I talk to them calmly, like I haven't even been in that situation at all. They ask me if I saw the car at all, or if anyone stopped, where I was exactly, if I had any lights, was I wearing my helmet, what happened to my other shoe (which I just realized wasn't on me anymore).
Alice, Sarah, and one of the three officers helps collect my stuff off the side of the road... including my bicycle which now has a bent back wheel, torn seat, and my shoe that flew 100 feet away and down a hill. The ambulance pulled up and carted me away while this happened. I was so relaxed that the EMS guys didn't even bother hitting the sirens on their way to the hospital, they just talked to me in shock that I'm so okay after such a thing.
While I'm riding with them, I start to piece together what happened a little bit. I didn't see the car (as I told the cops earlier) because I was facing the sky and in the air. The two or three thunks from when I hit means that I hit different parts of the car in succession and it propelled me (and my bike) forward and up, presumably. The fact that I couldn't even hear their car anymore after I finally landed means that they were driving at the speed limit (45) or faster (which got me thinking they could've done it on purpose... but then realized from the light shards and the fact that I landed on the shoulder instead of on the road that they would've had to clip me with one side of their vehicle... and if they were trying to hit me... they would've hit me straight on and fucked me up really badly). I shake slightly as I enter the hospital doors. For being so calm, they decide to bypass an immediate trauma entry and I go straight to the assessment area from the waiting room. Alice is with me at this point, having gotten a ride from Sarah to the hospital. The woman in the triage gets as far as "You were hit while riding your motorbike..." ... "um... no... my bicycle..." "oh no, you're going into Trauma Alert right now." Alice and I are seperated again as 5 or 6 nurses and two doctors rush to me while I'm rolled in a wheelchair to the Trauma Room. They poke and prod at my left ass cheek, which has now swollen about 4 times it's original size, and then send me to get X-Rays.
In the X-ray room, I finally notice how faint and weak I really am. They try to sit me up and I fall over, without quite blacking out. When I return to the trauma room, they inject me with morphine, set up a salt-water drip, take some more blood, and I ask for Alice. The doctor tells me that my x-rays are fine, and a surgery team is going to want to have a look at me to see if they need to drain any of the blood which has pooled in my glutes. Alice arrives, and I'm completely calm again (artificially now...) which she notices immediately (of course... the fact that I told her, "I'm good I just have a giant hematoma on my ASS AHAHAHA" probably helped her realize what I was on.)
Enter Frau. This is the woman who is here to make an assessment of my financial situation. HEAVY German accent, so heavy there is no possible way I can understand her on however much morphine they gave me. She doesn't smile at all (not that I would smile either working for a financial sector of a hospital) and her voice is very strong and direct while she asks me questions about insurance, police, etc. After she's gone, Alice and I look at each other... O.O indeed.
I freak out on Alice a little bit. I begin to shake, and tell her how sorry I am for getting in this situation. I also start worrying about the giant medical bill that we're going to see after this. She takes my hand, strokes it and calms me down.
After Frau leaves, a new nurse arrives and takes me to get a goddamn CT scan done (to check for any internal bleeding... which they had almost completely ruled out at this point). Alice asks if it's necessary, because neither one of us really want it... but I'm so drugged on morphine I tell the nurse "I don't care" and they take me down the hall.
After making my insides glow, they take me back to trauma... with no Alice... and about 40 other things going on. A nurse finally tells me that it's too hectic in the hospital right now... and I'm partially fine, so they plan on moving me. I'm moved to a hallway. This is where I lay for 30 minutes... without a single person checking up on me. I feel freaked out and I begin to shake again.
Eventually the doctor who has been working with me the most moves me into a very small curtained off room. He tells me everything came back fine, and I should be able to leave after the surgery team checks on me. After one of the surgery doctors tells me what she's looking for, I ask a nurse to go find Alice again and to see if someone can check my knee because I started to feel a lot of pain on movement. By this time I'm incredibly hungry and thirsty (they didn't give me a thing to drink because they want to see if the surgery team wants to operate or not) and bother Alice and the nurses repeatedly for a glass of water. Finally one of the nicer nurses sneaks in a half-cup of ice for me, quenching my thirst somewhat.
After what seemed about 3-4 more hours of waiting in this room(although time was still completely weird for me), and getting another x-ray for my knee, the surgery team finally arrives and tells me they want me to stay so they can observe me. Alice and I stare at them blankly... we both are sick of the hospital and about 2834932432 people have said I can go home soon, so we complain, and they relent... telling her to look out for 'skin necrosis' and sciatica pain and bring me back immediately if anything goes wrong.
Triumph! or so we think... as Alice helps me up to get dressed and leave the hospital, I lose consciousness. While we were pulling my boxers up I became faint, everything became blackish, my ears rang and I passed out. I woke up with 4 people around me, my boxers pulled up all the way (Alice told me the first thing they did was this... apparently nurses and doctors can't handle nudity...) and those sticky little heart monitors (which I was incredibly worried were defibrillators). While everyone assumes that I collapsed due to some unknown complication... Alice quickly explained that I have not had anything to eat since the 4 eggs for breakfast... and I've been incredibly thirsty all morning/afternoon... not to mention I was BIKING when the accident happened so I'm probably dehydrated/hungry as well as hypotensed (that so should be a word) from the lack of blood. After staring at each other for five - ten seconds... the nurses decide that this idea makes sense and go to get me food.
After eating a turkey sandwich, a sweetened fruit cup, a can of gingerale... and about 20 gallons of water, I finally decide I can try again and we walk out (very slowly on crutches). Brett was wonderful enough to pick us up and take us home from the long ordeal.
We got home at around 4:30pm Friday, which means I was at the hospital for over 8 hours, and since they didn't find anything wrong with me... except the obvious... the time I should've been there is probably half of that. I fainted once more while I was here, poor Sakky was here and I wished I didn't scare her like I did. Poor Alice has been taking care of me 24 hours and doing her best to keep me calm. I'm really glad her adoptive parents came to take care of her, she really needed a break from me (I am pretty demanding, and quite angry at the world... so I'm pretty cranky to her and I don't really mean to be, I hope she knows how much I love her and how much she means to me and I AM going to pay her back someday, definitely). I worry her so much, it really isn't fair to throw her into a situation where she has to be the one responsible for everything/everyone around.
There have been a multitude of people around to help me and Alice and keep us company, I'm really glad they came. Thank you to Gryphon, Justin, Syd, Sakky, Jenny, Alice's family and everyone else who plans to help. We really love you all.
As far as my condition goes, I'm definitely doing much better than Friday. The swelling on my butt has gone done tremendously, and there is a lot of color to the bruise (if anyone wants pictures of my ass, Alice has them, just didn't want to post my brutalized naked ass on LJ, heh... at some point I'm going to take a few pictures of my bike as well) which means it's healing well. There are many small scrapes, and bruises all over my body, but nothing really noticeable or serious. I can actually walk a little bit (with the crutches as aides, but at least I can put both feet on the ground) and I'm pretty sure my fainting spells are over since I've been eating healthily.
Thank you everyone, for showing concern.
Love, Kyle
P.S. This is probably the longest LJ entry I've ever written. |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
grabyourownboxy's journal