My Bum.
So I don't know if any of you have heard this story yet, but I figured I'd post it online so I can refer people to it rather than typing it a trillion times. This is also the long version, with all the boring stuff, just so I can record it somewhere. So be warned. :)
So, basically, last Saturday after Tae Kwon Do I went with my friends Annie and Alex to check out this "reservoir" (I don't think it's actually anybody's drinking water, but i dunno) that a lot of the Hamilton kids swim in when it's warm out. I'd never been there, so I wanted to give it a try. It was about a mile off the road on this dirt path, so we climbed on up to go swimming. There were a bunch of other kids there going off a rope swing, so after swimming around for awhile we decided to give it a try.
The swing was up a steep, real slippery, rocky bank and it went through a pretty small opening in the trees-- I guess it was pretty dangerous now that I think about it, but I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. We went off the swing a few times before I decided to join the cool kids in jumping onto the swing at a higher point. This meant you had a higher swing, but you also had to almost climb up the rope in the air-- it took a lot of strength that I didn't have, and I fell when I tried it.
I don't remember hitting the stick that was protruding from the bank, but my friends told me I did... to me it just felt like I hit the ground and slid into the water. When I got there my butt didn't hurt exactly, but it just felt wrong. I kinda thought i had a bunch of mud up there, a hypothesis formed by the lumpy sagging of my bathing suit. When i reached in there to pull out the mud, though, I realized that it wasn't mud, it was my flesh. I started yelling and everybody got me out of the water. One girl looked under my bathing suit and said, "Okay, she's gotta get to the hospital RIGHT NOW." That was the first time I felt faint.
Somebody called 911, but since we were so far in the woods the kids helping me told me I'd have to walk out. One girl supported me and another kid talked to me to keep my mind going and we walked about a half mile before we met up with any of the EMTs. At one point I asked if it was bleeding a lot and they said no, and they sounded relieved, and that kept me going because I figured it would be okay. I think the first people we met were cops, I don't really remember. One lady looked at the wound and said again that I HAD to get to a hospital. My optimism faded right along with the color in my face and I told them I didn't feel so well. The lady made me lay on my back, even though I kept telling her it hurt, until my friend Annie yelled at her that I had to lay on my side. The EMTs took awhile to get there and the lady said she had to do an "emergency dressing." Basically, this was duct tape that she put across the wound. She cut my bathing suit off, too.
There were firemen there too, because I guess whoever called 911 called it in as a medical emergency and a motor vehicle accident. So the firemen carried me the rest of the way out of the woods to the ambulance. They took me to the emergency room where they put me on IV and I waited for the ER doctor. He took the duct tape off (which killed), took one look at the wound, and said it was too much for him, that I'd have to go into surgery. It was filthy and had to be cleaned out before it was stiched back together, and I'd have to be under anesthesia to tolerate the pain. He called the surgeon. It seemed like I waited forever before Dr. Hammond (the surgeon) came in. He looked inside the wound, did a rectal exam (again incredibly painful) and said that I wouldn't be able to go home that night. I'd have to be in the hospital a week. I was terrified, but there wasn't much I could do, so I called my parents and waited for the surgery (it felt like I waited for hours and hours).
The wound is laceration a foot long and three inches deep, v-shaped, going across my right buttock right up to the anus (gross, but necessary info). It took them 3 hours and 4 gallons of saline to clean it out (he told me I had splinters, gravel, and "plant matter" in it), and they pumped me with antibiotics all week long.
The week was long and painful and boring. My mom came up and stayed with me, even though I told her not to the first night (she had to take all that time off work), and I was really grateful to have her there. I got lots of flowers and cards and stuffed animals, which made everything nicer, and a few of my friends came to visit me every day. I learned that there were rumors going around Hamilton that they pulled a dead body out of the reservoir and stuff. Pretty weird being at the center of such rumors! Anyway, last week was pretty rough. I couldn't walk real well and I couldn't lie on my back or my right side. My back was killing me from lying down all the time, and once they took me off the morphine IV my bum was pretty painful too.
I made progress every day, though, and they let me out yesterday. The doctor said I had to stay home for two weeks, though, so I laid in the back of my grandma's minivan for 5 hours yesterday and we made it back to west newbury. So I'm home, which is nice. Still in pain but still making progress, and doing my schoolwork from home. My professors all know me from former classes, so it wasn't so hard to get them to agree to this. Hopefully I'll be back to school after October break (the 5th i think).
So I guess that's pretty much the story! If you read the whole thing, that's admirable. If you got the basic idea, that's admirable too! I'm feeling better every day, but nice messages make me feel great! So leave a nice message cuz I don't have much to do but read them here! Hehe.
So, basically, last Saturday after Tae Kwon Do I went with my friends Annie and Alex to check out this "reservoir" (I don't think it's actually anybody's drinking water, but i dunno) that a lot of the Hamilton kids swim in when it's warm out. I'd never been there, so I wanted to give it a try. It was about a mile off the road on this dirt path, so we climbed on up to go swimming. There were a bunch of other kids there going off a rope swing, so after swimming around for awhile we decided to give it a try.
The swing was up a steep, real slippery, rocky bank and it went through a pretty small opening in the trees-- I guess it was pretty dangerous now that I think about it, but I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. We went off the swing a few times before I decided to join the cool kids in jumping onto the swing at a higher point. This meant you had a higher swing, but you also had to almost climb up the rope in the air-- it took a lot of strength that I didn't have, and I fell when I tried it.
I don't remember hitting the stick that was protruding from the bank, but my friends told me I did... to me it just felt like I hit the ground and slid into the water. When I got there my butt didn't hurt exactly, but it just felt wrong. I kinda thought i had a bunch of mud up there, a hypothesis formed by the lumpy sagging of my bathing suit. When i reached in there to pull out the mud, though, I realized that it wasn't mud, it was my flesh. I started yelling and everybody got me out of the water. One girl looked under my bathing suit and said, "Okay, she's gotta get to the hospital RIGHT NOW." That was the first time I felt faint.
Somebody called 911, but since we were so far in the woods the kids helping me told me I'd have to walk out. One girl supported me and another kid talked to me to keep my mind going and we walked about a half mile before we met up with any of the EMTs. At one point I asked if it was bleeding a lot and they said no, and they sounded relieved, and that kept me going because I figured it would be okay. I think the first people we met were cops, I don't really remember. One lady looked at the wound and said again that I HAD to get to a hospital. My optimism faded right along with the color in my face and I told them I didn't feel so well. The lady made me lay on my back, even though I kept telling her it hurt, until my friend Annie yelled at her that I had to lay on my side. The EMTs took awhile to get there and the lady said she had to do an "emergency dressing." Basically, this was duct tape that she put across the wound. She cut my bathing suit off, too.
There were firemen there too, because I guess whoever called 911 called it in as a medical emergency and a motor vehicle accident. So the firemen carried me the rest of the way out of the woods to the ambulance. They took me to the emergency room where they put me on IV and I waited for the ER doctor. He took the duct tape off (which killed), took one look at the wound, and said it was too much for him, that I'd have to go into surgery. It was filthy and had to be cleaned out before it was stiched back together, and I'd have to be under anesthesia to tolerate the pain. He called the surgeon. It seemed like I waited forever before Dr. Hammond (the surgeon) came in. He looked inside the wound, did a rectal exam (again incredibly painful) and said that I wouldn't be able to go home that night. I'd have to be in the hospital a week. I was terrified, but there wasn't much I could do, so I called my parents and waited for the surgery (it felt like I waited for hours and hours).
The wound is laceration a foot long and three inches deep, v-shaped, going across my right buttock right up to the anus (gross, but necessary info). It took them 3 hours and 4 gallons of saline to clean it out (he told me I had splinters, gravel, and "plant matter" in it), and they pumped me with antibiotics all week long.
The week was long and painful and boring. My mom came up and stayed with me, even though I told her not to the first night (she had to take all that time off work), and I was really grateful to have her there. I got lots of flowers and cards and stuffed animals, which made everything nicer, and a few of my friends came to visit me every day. I learned that there were rumors going around Hamilton that they pulled a dead body out of the reservoir and stuff. Pretty weird being at the center of such rumors! Anyway, last week was pretty rough. I couldn't walk real well and I couldn't lie on my back or my right side. My back was killing me from lying down all the time, and once they took me off the morphine IV my bum was pretty painful too.
I made progress every day, though, and they let me out yesterday. The doctor said I had to stay home for two weeks, though, so I laid in the back of my grandma's minivan for 5 hours yesterday and we made it back to west newbury. So I'm home, which is nice. Still in pain but still making progress, and doing my schoolwork from home. My professors all know me from former classes, so it wasn't so hard to get them to agree to this. Hopefully I'll be back to school after October break (the 5th i think).
So I guess that's pretty much the story! If you read the whole thing, that's admirable. If you got the basic idea, that's admirable too! I'm feeling better every day, but nice messages make me feel great! So leave a nice message cuz I don't have much to do but read them here! Hehe.