Patient#5,448,846
The long quiet is broken
If I had to bet on who would have to go to the emergency room first, my son or myself, I would have put embarrassingly large stacks of money on my son. And I would have lost.
Today, as Patient#5,448,846, I went to the emergency room at Providence Portland North Pavilion Medical Center.
The reason: nagging co-workers
The root cause: stupidity
what actually happened: I leaned over to pick something up off my desk as I was leaving my office and SMASHED my head into the doorframe. Such was the impact that all of the office wondered who had dropped a large heavy object.
Being a head wound, profuse bleeding was expected, so I immediately wet my hair and kept the wound clean and 'dry'. Dry is a terrible word but I believe accurate since I was actually keeping the wound wet with clean water. 4 hours later and you could not know that I had opened my scalp earlier in the day. This, thankfully, avoided my feared mat of dried bloody hair.
Applying ice to the head until my hands were too cold to continue applying the ice kept the swelling down and minimized the actual pain of the headache that was unavoidable.
The only remaining question of the day was therefore: did I have a concussion?
My initial and continued feelings were that I did not, and that no hospital visit was required.
However, my co-workers seemed to have concluded on their own that a hospital visit was the only correct end to this story. Nagging, replete with unverified comments to the effect of 'your pupils do not look the same', ensued.
Fine, said I.
To the hospital I go.
Later, when waiting in the emergency room, the concept of dispatching someone who may have a concussion to DRIVE THEMSELVES to the emergency room made it's idiocy plain.
Let me also add that the emergency room wait that I experienced, which certainly could have allowed me to bleed to death on account of it's length, would not have been nearly as long if I had actually had any problems worthy of speed. There appeared to be at least two and probably more people who skipped ahead of me in line, and I trust that they had good reason to do so.
So it was more than an hour later that I found myself in a room with a doctor who apparently decided that talking to me was more important than the little light in the eye thing that I was waiting for.
Dr: Did you lose consciousness?
Me: no
Dr: Have you been feeling nauseous or been vomiting?
Me: no
Dr: Do you have a headache?
Me: of course I have a headache, I slammed my head into a wall
Dr: Are you feeling less coordinated than usual?
Me: Uh, yeah, I walked into a wall, that tends to make you feel stupid and clumsy
Dr: Does it hurt when I press here ( pressing the wound area ) ?
Me: Well it certainly doesn't feel good, but I can stand it.
At this point it was obvious that the Doctor was rather having fun with her questions since I was obviously in no extreme condition and able to quip with her intentionally humorous comments.
Her levity was replaced with total focus and attention when she did bring out her little light and examine my eyes and their reactions to light and ability to track objects. I am not sure, but I would bet that she even drew this out a little more than she needed in the serious examination department, but since I had waited an hour for this ocular inspection, I was happy that she appeared to be taking it seriously.
Her definite and succinct conclusion, you do not have a concussion.
I also did not require stitches, although she was willing to shave my head and give me a couple if I really felt it necessary to come away from this hospital visit bald.
Thanking her for the offer, but declining, she at last asked if I thought my vision had been affected. At this point I thought we had quite a rapport, so I answered in my standard engineering manner with "My vision is probably at 90% right now".
She dispatched me to have a rough eye exam with a nurse ( male ) who almost gave me 20/20, but I think I guessed a "D" as an "O" or something cause I missed it by 1. Bummer but still better than I was expecting since I had been feeling my vision slipping somewhat in the three years since my Lasik surgery. Good to know it's still better than average.
Discharged with very strict instructions to return immediately to the emergency room if I experienced nausea or vomited for any reason in the next 48 hours, I was also informed that they could care less if I have a sore throat or cough or sniffles. Head injuries and cold symptoms do not have any related issues apparently.
Thus it was that I left the hospital feeling much more charitable to the world in general until a freak ray of sunshine reminded me that I had SMASHED my head into a doorframe earlier in the day.
2 hours and 2 Motrin ( with Codeine ) later - the world is still a pretty OK place.
Sometimes having annoyingly dense and strong bones can be a good thing.
When you are trying to climb a 5.11 - maybe not so much, but when you have a fight with a structural wall, it's nice to be thick skulled.
Here's hoping your days are at least as good as mine.
If I had to bet on who would have to go to the emergency room first, my son or myself, I would have put embarrassingly large stacks of money on my son. And I would have lost.
Today, as Patient#5,448,846, I went to the emergency room at Providence Portland North Pavilion Medical Center.
The reason: nagging co-workers
The root cause: stupidity
what actually happened: I leaned over to pick something up off my desk as I was leaving my office and SMASHED my head into the doorframe. Such was the impact that all of the office wondered who had dropped a large heavy object.
Being a head wound, profuse bleeding was expected, so I immediately wet my hair and kept the wound clean and 'dry'. Dry is a terrible word but I believe accurate since I was actually keeping the wound wet with clean water. 4 hours later and you could not know that I had opened my scalp earlier in the day. This, thankfully, avoided my feared mat of dried bloody hair.
Applying ice to the head until my hands were too cold to continue applying the ice kept the swelling down and minimized the actual pain of the headache that was unavoidable.
The only remaining question of the day was therefore: did I have a concussion?
My initial and continued feelings were that I did not, and that no hospital visit was required.
However, my co-workers seemed to have concluded on their own that a hospital visit was the only correct end to this story. Nagging, replete with unverified comments to the effect of 'your pupils do not look the same', ensued.
Fine, said I.
To the hospital I go.
Later, when waiting in the emergency room, the concept of dispatching someone who may have a concussion to DRIVE THEMSELVES to the emergency room made it's idiocy plain.
Let me also add that the emergency room wait that I experienced, which certainly could have allowed me to bleed to death on account of it's length, would not have been nearly as long if I had actually had any problems worthy of speed. There appeared to be at least two and probably more people who skipped ahead of me in line, and I trust that they had good reason to do so.
So it was more than an hour later that I found myself in a room with a doctor who apparently decided that talking to me was more important than the little light in the eye thing that I was waiting for.
Dr: Did you lose consciousness?
Me: no
Dr: Have you been feeling nauseous or been vomiting?
Me: no
Dr: Do you have a headache?
Me: of course I have a headache, I slammed my head into a wall
Dr: Are you feeling less coordinated than usual?
Me: Uh, yeah, I walked into a wall, that tends to make you feel stupid and clumsy
Dr: Does it hurt when I press here ( pressing the wound area ) ?
Me: Well it certainly doesn't feel good, but I can stand it.
At this point it was obvious that the Doctor was rather having fun with her questions since I was obviously in no extreme condition and able to quip with her intentionally humorous comments.
Her levity was replaced with total focus and attention when she did bring out her little light and examine my eyes and their reactions to light and ability to track objects. I am not sure, but I would bet that she even drew this out a little more than she needed in the serious examination department, but since I had waited an hour for this ocular inspection, I was happy that she appeared to be taking it seriously.
Her definite and succinct conclusion, you do not have a concussion.
I also did not require stitches, although she was willing to shave my head and give me a couple if I really felt it necessary to come away from this hospital visit bald.
Thanking her for the offer, but declining, she at last asked if I thought my vision had been affected. At this point I thought we had quite a rapport, so I answered in my standard engineering manner with "My vision is probably at 90% right now".
She dispatched me to have a rough eye exam with a nurse ( male ) who almost gave me 20/20, but I think I guessed a "D" as an "O" or something cause I missed it by 1. Bummer but still better than I was expecting since I had been feeling my vision slipping somewhat in the three years since my Lasik surgery. Good to know it's still better than average.
Discharged with very strict instructions to return immediately to the emergency room if I experienced nausea or vomited for any reason in the next 48 hours, I was also informed that they could care less if I have a sore throat or cough or sniffles. Head injuries and cold symptoms do not have any related issues apparently.
Thus it was that I left the hospital feeling much more charitable to the world in general until a freak ray of sunshine reminded me that I had SMASHED my head into a doorframe earlier in the day.
2 hours and 2 Motrin ( with Codeine ) later - the world is still a pretty OK place.
Sometimes having annoyingly dense and strong bones can be a good thing.
When you are trying to climb a 5.11 - maybe not so much, but when you have a fight with a structural wall, it's nice to be thick skulled.
Here's hoping your days are at least as good as mine.