I am very pale, like so pale, I could blend in with a snowstorm pale. I always counted it as something to do with my German/Irish/English bloodlines. When for any reason, I haven't eaten enough or drank enough water on a hot day or I'm feeling a bit worn down: people say I get even paler. Pale enough that my baby blue eyes seem to be the only color visible.
The past few years have been pretty bad with me fainting and thumping right to the floor. The doctors think it's lack of iron in my blood and anemia causing this or maybe I took an extra muscle relaxer too close to my night meds. Whatever it is, it's annoying.
Today was yet another fainting spell. Around 5:30 am, I had gotten up to use the bathroom but before I got there, I could feel my legs turning into sketti legs, all wobbly and useless at holding up any weight. I didn't even see the floor coming up to me, just woke up on the floor in between our bed and the radiator - curled up in pain and holding my head. I noticed my hands were getting wet and did the stupidest thing possible, I looked. Blood was all over, pooling on the carpet and sticking to my hair. I'd fallen directly on the corner of the radiator, scraped one part of my head and made a lovely gash right next to it. As I had rolled off of that, my forehead slammed against the corner of our bed platform. My husband heard the thump and was out of bed within 30 seconds. He ran to get an ice pack and when he saw blood all over, took me to the hospital.
This is where the story gets exciting.
I'm in the car, clutching my backpack with one hand and a bloody towel with the other, trying not to move much. We get to the on-ramp for the interstate and found out it was closed for no reason - nothing on the on-ramp, no construction, nada. Ok, fine. We drove a bit further and hey, the 2nd ramp was also closed. As my husband is swearing up a storm, we saw the detour sign for the interstate. We already know all the on-ramps around here and were already turning for this other one and guess what? Yup, closed. After some very colorful words about invisible road construction, my husband whipped around in the tightest u-turn I've ever seen. We ended up taking Hwy 100 all the way down to the hospital, a 25 minute drive.
By the time we get there, we couldn't find the road to turn on for the ER (for some glorious reason, there was construction around the hospital as well). When we finally pull up, Jim is cussing about not seeing parking AND the invisible construction. I'm whining because of the gooey blood all over and someone has walked up to the car with a wheelchair. They're also the valet. I had to say Jim's name quite sharply (you men know that tone!) to get him to realize it's valet. A guard actually goes thru my purse and wands me down before taking me in to get registered. From there, I'm rushed to an open triage room and Jim is being wanded down by security. He had to have his picture taken, drivers license number written down and his jacket pockets searched before he is allowed in.
The doctor comes into the room within 2 minutes and starts to examine my head, gently moving my matted hair aside to see the gashes. The nurses are trying to take my blood pressure and their machines aren't able to read it, so they're trying to find a pulse and not able to find that either. Trying to take my temperature and that's super low. So now I'm a zombie who is bleeding all over - great, 1st time for everything right? They didn't like my joke and were wondering why I was so calm about this, I'm still in shock about the blood, sorry if I'm not freaking out for them.
I had gotten rolled over so they could tap and see where I hurt. Well, I hurt all over. In the next 5 minutes, I'm laying on my back with a cervical collar on. It seemed to be so sudden so the jokes I'm thinking of aren't even coming out. The dr is explaining why I have the collar on and I'm freaking out now, thinking something is going to need surgery and I won't be able to go to C2E2 on the 27th. So as I'm on my way to get ct scans done, I'm thinking of who I can send to get the autograph of Sonny Strait (he's a voice actor for multiple anime and is also an artist for ElfQuest, the comic I collect). I've been trying to meet this man for close to 10 years now and he's finally going to be in Chicago.
They explain the ct scans were to see if I had bleeding on the brain (sounds cool but evidently isn't) or neck injuries from the fall. I'm shoved onto a super hard "sliding board" and then right into the tunnel for a few scans & moved over to the large doughnut thing for the other scans. I've also got a dose of fentanyl in me, they'd put it thru the iv right as they were wheeling me out. The nurse actually had to stop the transport person so they could get the needle out of the iv. I'm tripping big time and don't even remember the noise from the scanner. All I remember is some voice telling me when to breathe in and hold my breath and when to breathe again. They slid me over to the bed and whipped that board right out from under me.
I get back to the room and Jim had already watched a full episode of Family Guy. Did I realize it was 30 minutes later? nope. All I knew was that my shoulders, neck and head hurt horribly. As 3 more episodes had gone by (they sounded wonderful as I stared at the ceiling) and the Spiderman cartoon movie had played - the one with Spider Gwen, I've been crying the entire time. The collar not only makes me feel like Arnold from the movie Total Recall, its pressed right up against the back of my skull and 2 of the gashes. While I'm crying, the nurses are cleaning the blood up and cleaning the gash & 2 lacerations. One nurse is telling me I've got some nice goose eggs growing and I swear she said "don't cha know" - I wanted to ask if she's Canadian but didn't know how to bring it up without sounding like I don't trust Canadians. I never did bring it up.
I'm begging my husband to take the collar off (while my brain is trying not to giggle at naughty thoughts) and telling him to put it back on when they come into the room. He just says Yes Dear and goes back to his Simpsons movie - the one with spider pig. The nurses are called back in by him asking about pain control due to me grimacing in pain and crying uncontrollably. Another dose of fentanyl goes in along with something so I don't puke my guts out - evidently pain can cause that. I feel like I close my eyes for half a second but in reality, I've been crying in my sleep and another episode of Family Guy has finished.
After 6 1/2 hours of me crying in pain and a third dose of fentanyl later, the dr comes back in. He explains that there was a major trauma and everyone had been called to help with it - but hey, I was here first, right? Yeah, my brain isn't even registering that I'm in the ER due to all the lovely pain meds flowing thru my veins. The ct scans showed no damage to my neck or spinal column and no bleeding on my brain - or hemo-whatever-it's-called. The collar comes off and they finally raise the bed so I'm sitting upright. I'm in no pain at all and look around. Hubby said my eyes are so blown out, he could hardly see any blue, thanks to fentanyl. My tolerance is quite low, having been about 9 years since I'd had it last.
Getting home took no time at all, a whole 10 minutes, since the ramps were all open like they should have been earlier. Jim told me there's no concussion so I took a nice nap and now I'm living for the next time I'm allowed Tylenol and Ibuprofen. The headache is very annoying, my eyes are all red from crying most of the day and I can't move my head at all. When I fell, my muscles went into defense mode and got all tight. The Dr said I'll be tired today due to the pain meds I've gotten and tomorrow the pain going to be a LOT WORSE. So, yay for that. I very carefully washed the blood out of my hair - stung like crazy. Took a quick and very hot bath to start relaxing the muscles - had all 3 cats watching me to make sure I'm really home and not a zombie.
I can't drive for a few days until my muscles are back to normal, have to be careful brushing my hair so I don't open any scabs and have to start taking iron supplements again due to my lovely anemia. The Dr did tell me I'm lucky my bloodwork came out with a high enough iron count or I'd still be in the hospital getting a blood transfusion. I'm not good seeing blood so I almost threw up in my mouth hearing him say that. My iron pill is now in my med container once again.
So yeah, it's been a day. I texted back everyone who saw the post my husband made on my fb page, telling them I'm alive. Called my brother and Dad - my brother was going to come up from Indiana and hubby said we're ok and he didn't have to do that. My Dad was angry that I'm even thinking about driving to Chicago next Saturday - it's an 90 minute drive with traffic and I'll be fine. I explained about seeing Sonny Strait and then my Dad was on board - talking about getting an autograph, that's what he was ok with. A friend from church brought quiche for dinner and that was amazing.
The cats are still following me around. Probably making sure I don't turn into that zombie.
