Adventures in Ann Arbor
Mindy, this story is for you.
I went to visit my sister in Ann Arbor on Saturday. It was her 21st birthday, so everyone was in high spirits. We gathered at her place, did a little pre-drinking, then went to this fantastic bar. I drank WAY more than I should have (as did the birthday girl). Since my sister was feeling rather poorly, instead of sharing a bed with her, I decided to sleep downstairs on the futon.
Now, my sister lives in this 100+ year old Victorian style house. The basement stairs are basically wooden planks that I am SURE came with the original house. Picture this: I'm going down the stairs, in the dark, no contacts in (so I'm blind as a bat) and still slightly inebriated. I get to what I *think* is the floor and start walking towards my bed.
Instead, I slip off the last stair, scraping my right heel as I do so. It hurts, a lot, but I have done this sort of thing before on other stairs, so I am not too concerned until I feel wetness around my foot. I put my hand down on my ankle, and when I pull it away it is all bloody.
So I hobble back up the stairs, in the dark, and frantically look around the kitchen for something to mop up the blood. All I see is trash from the pre-party, so walking on the ball of my right foot I go up to the bathroom on the second floor. There I use toilet paper and soap, and take care of the wound until it doesn't appear to be bleeding any more. I can't really tell how bad it is, because it is in an awkward position and I'm basically blind (and still drunk) so I go downstairs to go back to bed. On my way through the kitchen, I notice several dark splotches on the linoleum that weren't there before.
I turned on the light switch and discovered, to my dismay, that I had bled all over the kitchen floor. At this point, had I been sober, my thought process probably would've gone something along the lines of:
"Geez, maybe I hurt myself more than I thought. Perhaps I should put my contacts back in and check this wound out."
Instead, my brain went:
"Oh no!! I have to get those stains off the floor or Maria's roomates will FREAK OUT."
I found some disinfectant wipes and cleaned all the blood of the floor. I crawled on my hands and knees down the hallway, making sure I hadn't tracked blood onto the carpet.
And then I went back to bed. I didn't wake anyone up so they could tell me where the band aids were, or to get a second opinion on my foot.
Flash forward to the next morning. I wake up, and my foot positively ACHED. I told my sister what had happened and showed her my foot. She insisted that I put my contacts in and take a look at the wound.
Skip this paragraph if you have a sensitive stomach. There was a LOT of dried, crusted blood around the wound. There were also several fuzzies from the carpet and I don't know WHAT else stuck in there. My sister started to try to clean it out a bit for me and it became apparent that this was something more than she could handle (mainly because I started to freak out when she wanted to clean the gunk out with tweezers).
We decided to go to the ER and get the professionals to look at it (Useless fact: U of M emergency room has free valet parking!). I got taken into a room almost immediately. First, they filled up a bedpan with sterile, freezing cold water and made me stick my foot in it. Then they gave me a tetanus shot. They told me that they couldn't put stitches in it (and the wound WAS big enough to warrant a stitch or two) since it had been over 12 hours and stitches would make it more likely to get infected. The poor ER Attending then had to numb up my foot (I have this phobia about letting people touch my feet, plus it really hurt) so he could dig around in the wound and make sure there were no "foreign bodies" in it. They then cleaned it, slapped some antibiotic cream on it, wrapped me up and sent me on my merry way.
So now I am taking these antibiotic pills four times a day. I am supposed to do it until the prescription runs out. There are some red streaks on my ankle, which I marked with a pen, to make sure they don't go any further up my leg. If they do, I have blood poisoning. I'm supposed to keep my foot elevated, and stay off it as much as I can. I have to change the band aid and put antibacterial cream on it twice a day. I also had to schedule a follow up with my own doctor on Thursday.
Now, I don't hurt myself all that often, but when I *do*, I seem to really go all out. Because that is how I roll.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARIA!!! DESPITE THE FOOT, I HAD A GREAT TIME!!! I HOPE YOU DID, TOO!!!
Oh, and if you're wondering about the text of the cut, I was *supposed* to tell people that I ran barefoot across some glass after breaking my spike heals in pursuit of a crystal queen who had stolen my sister's purse. But that just seemed like too much of a mouthful. ;-)
I went to visit my sister in Ann Arbor on Saturday. It was her 21st birthday, so everyone was in high spirits. We gathered at her place, did a little pre-drinking, then went to this fantastic bar. I drank WAY more than I should have (as did the birthday girl). Since my sister was feeling rather poorly, instead of sharing a bed with her, I decided to sleep downstairs on the futon.
Now, my sister lives in this 100+ year old Victorian style house. The basement stairs are basically wooden planks that I am SURE came with the original house. Picture this: I'm going down the stairs, in the dark, no contacts in (so I'm blind as a bat) and still slightly inebriated. I get to what I *think* is the floor and start walking towards my bed.
Instead, I slip off the last stair, scraping my right heel as I do so. It hurts, a lot, but I have done this sort of thing before on other stairs, so I am not too concerned until I feel wetness around my foot. I put my hand down on my ankle, and when I pull it away it is all bloody.
So I hobble back up the stairs, in the dark, and frantically look around the kitchen for something to mop up the blood. All I see is trash from the pre-party, so walking on the ball of my right foot I go up to the bathroom on the second floor. There I use toilet paper and soap, and take care of the wound until it doesn't appear to be bleeding any more. I can't really tell how bad it is, because it is in an awkward position and I'm basically blind (and still drunk) so I go downstairs to go back to bed. On my way through the kitchen, I notice several dark splotches on the linoleum that weren't there before.
I turned on the light switch and discovered, to my dismay, that I had bled all over the kitchen floor. At this point, had I been sober, my thought process probably would've gone something along the lines of:
"Geez, maybe I hurt myself more than I thought. Perhaps I should put my contacts back in and check this wound out."
Instead, my brain went:
"Oh no!! I have to get those stains off the floor or Maria's roomates will FREAK OUT."
I found some disinfectant wipes and cleaned all the blood of the floor. I crawled on my hands and knees down the hallway, making sure I hadn't tracked blood onto the carpet.
And then I went back to bed. I didn't wake anyone up so they could tell me where the band aids were, or to get a second opinion on my foot.
Flash forward to the next morning. I wake up, and my foot positively ACHED. I told my sister what had happened and showed her my foot. She insisted that I put my contacts in and take a look at the wound.
Skip this paragraph if you have a sensitive stomach. There was a LOT of dried, crusted blood around the wound. There were also several fuzzies from the carpet and I don't know WHAT else stuck in there. My sister started to try to clean it out a bit for me and it became apparent that this was something more than she could handle (mainly because I started to freak out when she wanted to clean the gunk out with tweezers).
We decided to go to the ER and get the professionals to look at it (Useless fact: U of M emergency room has free valet parking!). I got taken into a room almost immediately. First, they filled up a bedpan with sterile, freezing cold water and made me stick my foot in it. Then they gave me a tetanus shot. They told me that they couldn't put stitches in it (and the wound WAS big enough to warrant a stitch or two) since it had been over 12 hours and stitches would make it more likely to get infected. The poor ER Attending then had to numb up my foot (I have this phobia about letting people touch my feet, plus it really hurt) so he could dig around in the wound and make sure there were no "foreign bodies" in it. They then cleaned it, slapped some antibiotic cream on it, wrapped me up and sent me on my merry way.
So now I am taking these antibiotic pills four times a day. I am supposed to do it until the prescription runs out. There are some red streaks on my ankle, which I marked with a pen, to make sure they don't go any further up my leg. If they do, I have blood poisoning. I'm supposed to keep my foot elevated, and stay off it as much as I can. I have to change the band aid and put antibacterial cream on it twice a day. I also had to schedule a follow up with my own doctor on Thursday.
Now, I don't hurt myself all that often, but when I *do*, I seem to really go all out. Because that is how I roll.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARIA!!! DESPITE THE FOOT, I HAD A GREAT TIME!!! I HOPE YOU DID, TOO!!!
Oh, and if you're wondering about the text of the cut, I was *supposed* to tell people that I ran barefoot across some glass after breaking my spike heals in pursuit of a crystal queen who had stolen my sister's purse. But that just seemed like too much of a mouthful. ;-)