Waiting To Die
Honestly, this is NOT an emo post. I swear. But I don't have a better title. Mom asked me to write out the events of a day in my life I prefer not to think about. I broke my leg by pulling a very large and heavy thing down on myself (by accident!) when I was about six, maybe seven. Mom wants me to write it out for her, everything I can remember. I really don't want to.
Before I go further, I have to explain WHY I don't want to write what I'm about to attempt to put into words. Confused yet? Hang on, it'll get much much worse better.
The first reason should be obvious: it really, really sucked. I would prefer to forget that day ever happened.
The other big reason for not wanting to write it out for mom is that she wants to use it in one of her classes. Yeap, she's been teaching a story about some kid who thinks he's going to die (he's not) and I thought I was going to die when I got squooshed underneath a large and heavy hunk of wood. She's already been telling her students about my accident in conjunction with the story, but thought it might be "nice" if the kids got to hear it from "the main character's perspective." I'll let you fill in the blanks about why that's irritating.
My last, and largest, problem with this is that she's never asked me before. Never. I don't think she's really interested in my side of the story, and wouldn't have asked me if she didn't want material for her classes. If the subject ever came up, mom was perfectly happy to dominate the conversation and tell me the same story again and again. She would tell anyone who asked about it, never leting me get a word in edgewise even if the person asked me directly. She also never failed to remind me that I asked her to stay with me and she did. She never left my side at any point during the whole awful ordeal because she's such a good mother. I guess the problem for me is the telling of my awful accident has always been all about HER.
I don't know how much sense all of that made, but I felt the need to say it before I try to tell this story, it's cathartic and I'll be less tempted to slip jabs into the story. I probably will wind up leaving one or two in, but perhaps my three loyal readers can let me know if I get mean about my mom.....
Begin:
When I was about seven years old, I was playing tag with some friends in the church auditorium. My dad was the preacher at the local Church of Christ in Canton, Mississippi at the time, and the grown-ups were doing various adult things. Some of the men were having a meeting, the song leader was in the auditorium, engrossed in making lists for songs to sing next month, the moms were chatting or cleaning up from the potluck, and of course we kids were running around having fun as only kids can.
This particular church had a raised dais for the pulpits to sit on. There were two of them: big, solid, wooden blocks four, maybe five, feet high. They probably weighed two hundred pounds apiece. The other kids and I, as I mentioned, were playing tag. I ran up onto the dais to get away from whoever was "it" and as I hit the top step, I slipped and lost my balance. I grabbed ahold of the front corner of the pulpit to steady myself and immediately fell face-down on the floor in front of the dais as the massive thing tilted. I later learned that while the pulpit should have been bolted to the floor, it was moved prior to a wedding some years ago and never bolted back down. My weight on one corner was enough to throw the thing off balance.
I turned over and saw the pulpit leaning forward. It looked much bigger looming over me as I lay on the floor. I was stunned and watched it rocked towards me, then away. I thought I was safe, because it rocked backwards, but it rocked forward again. When I saw that it was going to come back and fall on me, I tried to crawl underneath the pews, but I started moving far too late. I don't think I made it more than a few inches when the pulpit fell. One of its corners must have hit my leg, because it split open skin and muscle as well as breaking bone. I don't remember it actually hitting. All I remember is that I was afraid. I looked up in time to be scared, and then there was pain.
It was the kind of pain that can't really be described. For what felt like an eternity, there was nothing but red in my eyes and deep pain that burned in my leg and spread through the whole of my small body. I couldn't believe that a human could endure such pain and survive. I was sure I was dead. That was it, I was dying and I just wanted to say good-bye. I have no memory of screaming, but I know I did. I was told later that it was a keening howl, the way I imagine a banshee's cry, rather than the screaming you might hear from someone on a roller coaster or in a movie.
Then Billy, the songleader, came and lifted the pulpit and the pain lessened. It was still awful, and I was still going to die, but the red left my eyes and I could see again. I looked down at my leg and saw the wound. It was huge to my eyes, and bright red with a little bit of white in the middle. I thought some chalk had falled out of the pulpit and gotten in it, not realizing until much later that I was seeing my own bones.
There were faces and voices all around me, all of them indistinct. My mom's voice cut through them and I screamed, "Mom, it's bad! It's bad!" My voice was hysterical and she barked, "Stop it!" at me. She sounded so very stern that I shut up and don't think I said anything else, except for whimpers, for quite a while. I thought she was angry with me for making a mess, or because I had caused a lot of trouble. I realized later that she was just very scared.
The next thing I remember is being carried by my dad to the car, hearing my brother shouting to know what happened and to see me. I know they didn't let me look at me, which I think was probably a mistake. He probably thought I was dying, too. They put me in the car, but I don't remember exactly how. I know someone had to hold my foot up so that the bone wouldn't break all the way through. Dad held my foot while we were in the car, and mom drove. She's always been the lead foot of the family, and she described the trip to the Urgent Care as "flying low."
I was started to feel very heavy, the way you feel when you're about to fall asleep, or haven't quite woken up. The pain wasn't as bad, but I was still pretty sure that I was dying. I actually figured that this was what dying must feel like, like going to sleep. That's how people described killing pets, saying Fluffy was "put to sleep." I remember asking, very quietly, afraid mom was still mad, if I was going to die. She and dad both told me no, of course not, and that's when I realized that mom wasn't mad. She was just scared. I didn't really believe mom and dad, though. They'd never lied to me, but I didn't think they would tell me if I was dying.
My memory skips forward to getting into the Urgent Care doctor's office. I don't remember being taken out of the car, or the trip from the car to the office. I just remember bursting through the double doors from the waiting room into an X-ray room. I remember being worried about cutting in line in front of all those other people waiting for their turn, but no one was angry or came after us, so I thought they must be very nice people.
The X-ray machine scared me, because it was cold and big, like some terrifying alien torture device, and I didn't want to go into it. Then they said they were going to cut my sock off of my broken foot, and I was really upset. They were brand new socks and they were pretty, with white lace around the cuff. My parents promised that they would buy me new socks and I calmed down. The thought that the sock was blood-soaked and therefore already garbage didn't occur to me. But I was still afraid of the machine and asked mom to stay with me. She did. She stayed with me the rest of the day, from the the X-ray all the way through the hospital until we got home.
After the X-ray, there was a quiet moment when no one was rushing around or looking terrified and the doctor didn't seem to be scared and I realized I wasn't probably wasn't going to die. My foot didn't even hurt much anymore. I think medical professionals call this "shock," but I didn't know at the time. I just felt for the first time since it happened that I might actually be all right. I don't remember much after that. I may have fallen asleep at that point, but I don't remember leaving the doctor's office, or the trip to the hospital.
The next thing I can recall is being helped into a wheelchair at the hospital. I didn't hurt at all at this point, and I felt very sleepy and foggy. I remember getting up into the hospital, and someone decided that the foot rest on the wheelchair was too hard for my foot, and the nurses picked up my leg and put a stack of cloths underneath it. The padding actually hurt my foot more than the metal and plastic of the wheelchair's foot rest. The same person covered my wound with another cloth. I can remember talking to another doctor or nurse that showed up who wanted to look at my leg. I remember saying, "it looks awful. If you want to look, that's okay, but I'm not going to," and then I remember dramatically turning my head away and covering my face with both hands.
I know I was taken up to some kind of procedure room, and I was knocked out so that they could put my leg back together. I didn't actually have surgery, but my leg had to be drained, even though I'm still not sure what that meant. I woke up at one point and saw the doctor down at my leg, my mom's face behind and off to the side, and something that looked like a yellow tube coming out of my leg. Then I was asleep again and didn't wake up until we were back home.
At home, I realized that it must have been a terribly long day, because it was completely dark out. At that time of year, the sun stayed out until about 8 at night, and though I'm not sure, I'm guessing that it was probably close to midnight. From the time the pulpit fell on me to the time my dad laid me down on the couch to sleep, it probably took ten hours.
I remember having a blanket draped over me, and falling back to sleep for a very long time. The worst day of my life was finally over.
End.
Before I go further, I have to explain WHY I don't want to write what I'm about to attempt to put into words. Confused yet? Hang on, it'll get much much worse better.
The first reason should be obvious: it really, really sucked. I would prefer to forget that day ever happened.
The other big reason for not wanting to write it out for mom is that she wants to use it in one of her classes. Yeap, she's been teaching a story about some kid who thinks he's going to die (he's not) and I thought I was going to die when I got squooshed underneath a large and heavy hunk of wood. She's already been telling her students about my accident in conjunction with the story, but thought it might be "nice" if the kids got to hear it from "the main character's perspective." I'll let you fill in the blanks about why that's irritating.
My last, and largest, problem with this is that she's never asked me before. Never. I don't think she's really interested in my side of the story, and wouldn't have asked me if she didn't want material for her classes. If the subject ever came up, mom was perfectly happy to dominate the conversation and tell me the same story again and again. She would tell anyone who asked about it, never leting me get a word in edgewise even if the person asked me directly. She also never failed to remind me that I asked her to stay with me and she did. She never left my side at any point during the whole awful ordeal because she's such a good mother. I guess the problem for me is the telling of my awful accident has always been all about HER.
I don't know how much sense all of that made, but I felt the need to say it before I try to tell this story, it's cathartic and I'll be less tempted to slip jabs into the story. I probably will wind up leaving one or two in, but perhaps my three loyal readers can let me know if I get mean about my mom.....
Begin:
When I was about seven years old, I was playing tag with some friends in the church auditorium. My dad was the preacher at the local Church of Christ in Canton, Mississippi at the time, and the grown-ups were doing various adult things. Some of the men were having a meeting, the song leader was in the auditorium, engrossed in making lists for songs to sing next month, the moms were chatting or cleaning up from the potluck, and of course we kids were running around having fun as only kids can.
This particular church had a raised dais for the pulpits to sit on. There were two of them: big, solid, wooden blocks four, maybe five, feet high. They probably weighed two hundred pounds apiece. The other kids and I, as I mentioned, were playing tag. I ran up onto the dais to get away from whoever was "it" and as I hit the top step, I slipped and lost my balance. I grabbed ahold of the front corner of the pulpit to steady myself and immediately fell face-down on the floor in front of the dais as the massive thing tilted. I later learned that while the pulpit should have been bolted to the floor, it was moved prior to a wedding some years ago and never bolted back down. My weight on one corner was enough to throw the thing off balance.
I turned over and saw the pulpit leaning forward. It looked much bigger looming over me as I lay on the floor. I was stunned and watched it rocked towards me, then away. I thought I was safe, because it rocked backwards, but it rocked forward again. When I saw that it was going to come back and fall on me, I tried to crawl underneath the pews, but I started moving far too late. I don't think I made it more than a few inches when the pulpit fell. One of its corners must have hit my leg, because it split open skin and muscle as well as breaking bone. I don't remember it actually hitting. All I remember is that I was afraid. I looked up in time to be scared, and then there was pain.
It was the kind of pain that can't really be described. For what felt like an eternity, there was nothing but red in my eyes and deep pain that burned in my leg and spread through the whole of my small body. I couldn't believe that a human could endure such pain and survive. I was sure I was dead. That was it, I was dying and I just wanted to say good-bye. I have no memory of screaming, but I know I did. I was told later that it was a keening howl, the way I imagine a banshee's cry, rather than the screaming you might hear from someone on a roller coaster or in a movie.
Then Billy, the songleader, came and lifted the pulpit and the pain lessened. It was still awful, and I was still going to die, but the red left my eyes and I could see again. I looked down at my leg and saw the wound. It was huge to my eyes, and bright red with a little bit of white in the middle. I thought some chalk had falled out of the pulpit and gotten in it, not realizing until much later that I was seeing my own bones.
There were faces and voices all around me, all of them indistinct. My mom's voice cut through them and I screamed, "Mom, it's bad! It's bad!" My voice was hysterical and she barked, "Stop it!" at me. She sounded so very stern that I shut up and don't think I said anything else, except for whimpers, for quite a while. I thought she was angry with me for making a mess, or because I had caused a lot of trouble. I realized later that she was just very scared.
The next thing I remember is being carried by my dad to the car, hearing my brother shouting to know what happened and to see me. I know they didn't let me look at me, which I think was probably a mistake. He probably thought I was dying, too. They put me in the car, but I don't remember exactly how. I know someone had to hold my foot up so that the bone wouldn't break all the way through. Dad held my foot while we were in the car, and mom drove. She's always been the lead foot of the family, and she described the trip to the Urgent Care as "flying low."
I was started to feel very heavy, the way you feel when you're about to fall asleep, or haven't quite woken up. The pain wasn't as bad, but I was still pretty sure that I was dying. I actually figured that this was what dying must feel like, like going to sleep. That's how people described killing pets, saying Fluffy was "put to sleep." I remember asking, very quietly, afraid mom was still mad, if I was going to die. She and dad both told me no, of course not, and that's when I realized that mom wasn't mad. She was just scared. I didn't really believe mom and dad, though. They'd never lied to me, but I didn't think they would tell me if I was dying.
My memory skips forward to getting into the Urgent Care doctor's office. I don't remember being taken out of the car, or the trip from the car to the office. I just remember bursting through the double doors from the waiting room into an X-ray room. I remember being worried about cutting in line in front of all those other people waiting for their turn, but no one was angry or came after us, so I thought they must be very nice people.
The X-ray machine scared me, because it was cold and big, like some terrifying alien torture device, and I didn't want to go into it. Then they said they were going to cut my sock off of my broken foot, and I was really upset. They were brand new socks and they were pretty, with white lace around the cuff. My parents promised that they would buy me new socks and I calmed down. The thought that the sock was blood-soaked and therefore already garbage didn't occur to me. But I was still afraid of the machine and asked mom to stay with me. She did. She stayed with me the rest of the day, from the the X-ray all the way through the hospital until we got home.
After the X-ray, there was a quiet moment when no one was rushing around or looking terrified and the doctor didn't seem to be scared and I realized I wasn't probably wasn't going to die. My foot didn't even hurt much anymore. I think medical professionals call this "shock," but I didn't know at the time. I just felt for the first time since it happened that I might actually be all right. I don't remember much after that. I may have fallen asleep at that point, but I don't remember leaving the doctor's office, or the trip to the hospital.
The next thing I can recall is being helped into a wheelchair at the hospital. I didn't hurt at all at this point, and I felt very sleepy and foggy. I remember getting up into the hospital, and someone decided that the foot rest on the wheelchair was too hard for my foot, and the nurses picked up my leg and put a stack of cloths underneath it. The padding actually hurt my foot more than the metal and plastic of the wheelchair's foot rest. The same person covered my wound with another cloth. I can remember talking to another doctor or nurse that showed up who wanted to look at my leg. I remember saying, "it looks awful. If you want to look, that's okay, but I'm not going to," and then I remember dramatically turning my head away and covering my face with both hands.
I know I was taken up to some kind of procedure room, and I was knocked out so that they could put my leg back together. I didn't actually have surgery, but my leg had to be drained, even though I'm still not sure what that meant. I woke up at one point and saw the doctor down at my leg, my mom's face behind and off to the side, and something that looked like a yellow tube coming out of my leg. Then I was asleep again and didn't wake up until we were back home.
At home, I realized that it must have been a terribly long day, because it was completely dark out. At that time of year, the sun stayed out until about 8 at night, and though I'm not sure, I'm guessing that it was probably close to midnight. From the time the pulpit fell on me to the time my dad laid me down on the couch to sleep, it probably took ten hours.
I remember having a blanket draped over me, and falling back to sleep for a very long time. The worst day of my life was finally over.
End.