Opinions Of An Outraged Triage Nurse

Often times I’m asked by other bloggers to post stories or submissions to my blog since I have such a diverse cross section of readers that visit The Sting Of The Scorpion Blog. Sometimes emails are exchanged between friends with things that they thought were humorous in some way or tell a good story and they don’t want that story to go to waste or never be seen. I offer this promise, as it has always been here since the beginning, when readers contact me I usually try to accommodate the request, and the following submission y’all will read is just that, it has been passed along in emails for quite some time when it finally fell into the hands of my aunt who just happens to be a retired nurse. There are over 90 forwards of the email, mostly if I had to guess, to other medical professionals and such. She sent it to me to see if it was worthy to go onto my blog. After reading the message a few times I thought it will fit in here just perfectly. I like it when people vent, I especially like it when what is being vented about is relatable to myself, family, and the general public. Y’all will see some humor and sarcasm which I’m positive is from this emergency room triage nurse’s years of experience serving the public. I share this post with y’all today with my appreciation and gratitude to all the medical professionals who serve the public, my hat is off to y’all. I dedicate this to post to ALL of my doctor, nurse, and medical staff friends out their in the world.

Just remember, the views, opinions, and positions expressed by this submission from an emergency room triage nurse on The Sting Of The Scorpion Blog is hers alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of The Sting Of The Scorpion Blog. By reading the following submission, you understand and do not hold responsible The Sting Of The Scorpion Blog for the contents of this submission. The following submission contains strong and coarse adult language which might offend the faint of heart, so reader discretion is advised, and now you have been warned.

People of the world, I am a triage nurse at a busy emergency room in a major metropolitan city. There is much to be said about the people who come into emergency rooms and I’m taking my turn to give my personal opinion, so let me get started.

Do NOT come up to the front desk of the Emergency Room, fling your health insurance card at me, tell me that your doctor told you to come in, stand there with a bored expression on your face and cross your arms over your chest. That is not helpful. When I ask what you are specifically here for do not repeat that the Doctor told you to come in. When I ask what SYMPTOMS caused you to come in; Please do not say that it’s in the fucking computer to me. There are 16 God damn people behind you all sicker than your whiney morbidly obese smoking ass. I’m not going to take the 8 minutes to log onto the computer, log my way in and through your medical record until I get to the part where your doctor’s phone nurse writes “This asshole smoker called me because he’s got a cough” Just tell me that you’re here for the fucking cough!

If your spouse (usually the sensible one) drags you in for the stroke that you had 3 days ago and you still have facial droop, slurred speech, and one-sided paralysis do not state that “My wife made me come in” when I ask why you’re here. Just tell me what the fuck you’re here for. And after I put you in line to go back to the ER do not send your cringing hand-wringing co-dependant family members up to me every 15 minutes to ask if it’s your turn yet. IF IT WAS YOUR TURN WE WOULD BE CALLING YOUR GOD DAMN NAME. The window for stroke treatment was 3 hours. Now that you’re long past it you’re looking at a lengthy rehab. After 3 days another hour or four won’t make a lick of difference. Your anger, frustration, worry, and regret will not get you in any faster. As the slow truth of your stupidity sinks in do not glare at me.

Do not ask to talk to my supervisor or the hospital supervisor when I talk to you in the same tone of voice that you talk to me. This is not Burger King, you do not get it ‘Your way right away.’ The squeaky wheel does not always get the grease. Do not excessively first name me just because I’m required to wear a fucking hospital badge. Including my full name in every sentence is a shallow manipulation, an implied threat that unless you get your way another personally directed customer complaint is forthcoming. I am not stupid. Your threats annoy the shit out of me. Making it personal does not change the 3 hour wait. Making it personal may result in the often used “Therapeutic wait”  (reserved for true assholes). You do not want a fucking therapeutic wait.

Don’t cough in my face. Being in a hospital does not automatically excuse you from the social expectations that we as society have had of you since you were three. Do not be like the drunks who tell me that “If you didn’t want to be coughed (shit, spat, vomited, bled, pissed) on you shoulda’ been a carpenter” If you continue this behavior do not be surprised when I throw a towel over your face while you are in mid-cough or mid-sentence.

Do not tell me that you “Can’t breathe” in long rambling 20 word sentences. In the ghetto that may mean something different, Here in the ER we have different standards for what it really means to not be able to breathe. My bar of not breathing will be reset weekly by the people that are truly blue and/or about 30 seconds from coding from lack of Oxygen. There are people whose lungs are so diseased and scarred that they barely exchange oxygen on a good day with the help of their home oxygen tanks. These people come in and let their bodies do the speaking for them. They eloquently slump over their wheelchairs (or the ambulance gurneys) and are never so whiney about it as the 23 year old single smoking mom (of 4 kids by 4 fathers) who has been nursing an upper respiratory infection for a week or two.

Similarly, do not tell me that little Shantiqua is ‘bleeding bad’ with her 1cm cut, that your bullshit pain is 10/10, that you are suicidal when you took 3 Tylenol instead of 2 (gasp!) after mommy grounded you, or that because your emergency is the worse that you’ve ever had, that it’s the worst that could possibly happen in the sum total of human experience. I’m supposed to act like your story is the saddest tale that I’ve ever heard. It’s not. Sad? Sad is when the drunk driver that killed the kids is unhurt. Sad is when someone is actively psychotic but still lucid enough to know that they have driven away everyone in their life and ruined everything with their madness. Sad is listening to the same beautiful young woman beg for some medicines that will stop the hallucinations while crying in frustration and screaming her angst.

Sad is when people pull up to the front of the hospital with a dead relative in the passenger seat of their car. I mean this guy had been dead for 15 minutes and the family only focused on driving to the hospital. Did they pull over and call 911 in an area where the average response time is 5 minutes? No. Did they do CPR? No. Did they expect me to single-handedly yard this 265 lb guy out of the car, into a wheelchair, back to the ER, do CPR, code him just like on TV, and make a miracle happen? Yes! Yes that’s exactly what they expected. I sat there with my fingers stuck in his throat where his pulse should have been and said “He’s dead, he’s been dead for 15 minutes. What is it that you expect us to do?” We argued over his blue/gray corpse for about a minute before I reluctantly took him back to the ER and started the rain dance. Guess what? After we abused his corpse for 20-30 minutes (not my decision) he was STILL DEAD. Who would have thought?

Yes, I know what’s going on tonight. I’ve seen your exact symptoms hundreds of times. I order your X-rays, labs, ECG, and then read/interpret them (and you) before deciding where you’re sent. The whole model of my HMO’s emergency service (and the withholding of that service) is built on our clinical judgement. I am not (nor do I want to be) a doctor and I am not allowed to ‘diagnose’. Yet my job responsibilities and description require me to do exactly that in order to facilitate care. This arrives us at a legal fallacy where we (nurses) all pretend that we don’t know what’s going on and that “you’ll have to talk to the doctor” in order to keep our jobs and licenses. When we do tell people exactly what’s up, they use that to decide to leave (without seeing a doctor = legal mess), or argue ( = pain in my ass), or press for more medical advice, or complain, or ask for special treatment, or otherwise cause problems. Tired of not being told what’s up by the person with the knowledgeable smile? Tough shit. No, I’m not stupid. Telling you has only got me into trouble in the past. As I don’t know you, you’re not worth it.

Do not believe that because your doctor told you to come right to the ER that you have a right to be seen right away. Let us discuss why he really said that; LIABILITY. Your doctor doesn’t give a rat’s ass about little Johnny’s sniffles as long as he’s out of the clinic before 5:00. Filling up his over-booked appointment calender could have an adverse affect on that, but sending them ‘right away’ to the ER won’t! AND no one can ever sue him for bad advice or irresponsible behavior because he TOLD them to go the ER ‘Right away’ for the ‘Highest level of care.’ Gotta keep those malpractice premiums down! Motherfuckers.

There are only two things worse than a doctor that won’t see his own patients:

1) The worse thing is doctors that not only won’t see their own patients, but they send them into the ER with a wildly unrealistic set of expectations. “My doctor told me to come in right away and to go right back! He said I was too sick to wait in the lobby. He ordered you to do tests, they are (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) ON THE COMPUTER”. I’m not taking shit for orders from some lazy-ass, wart burning, boil lancing, sprained ankle rotating, sore throat examining general practitioner who has assessed you OVER THE PHONE and doesn’t even have ER privileges. Piss-off! you can get an appointment at the clinic in three hours and you’ll be fine. Walk down to the lab yourself if you want those tests.

2) Advice nurses are the bane of our existence. Sure they can’t tell everything over the phone, sure people are generally bad communicators, sure the clinics and doctors are over-booked, sure it’s 2-6 weeks out to even see a doctor, sure my cheap-ass HMO added another 90,000 new members last month but no infrastructure to deal with them, but the solution for this is not Not NOT to ‘go to the ER right away where they will fill the fantasies that our unscrupulous marketing department has instilled in you.’ Fuck off. I love getting advice nurses for patients. They must know because they are reluctant to mention it. We hate them all and feel no shame in railing against them while they suffer (off the clock) in their sick and/or injured misery.

People! I could go on for days and days, but I will spare you. Think about every miserable customer service job that you’ve ever had and multiply that by tenfold with whiney patients. It’s not that I hate people; I just hate peoples’ sense of entitlement and instant gratification. Folks might as well say “I have abused my body for decades and I’m here for you to fix me.” WTF?

To review:

1) Don’t be an asshole
2) Lose the weight, stop smoking, take your damn psych meds, and take care of yourself!
3) Its not our fault or responsibility that you’re sick/injured. In fact, it’s probably yours.
4) Folks that arrive dead usually stay dead
5) It’s not like on TV
6) Years of patient abuse have (clearly) left us all a bit burnt
7) Don’t forget your manners when you come to my ER : )

Magic Weekend 4th Of July Edition

I hope y’all are ready for this 4th of July edition of The Magic Weekend because it was definitely an eye opener for me. As you can see from the photo above I am honoring a promise I made a while back when I said I will do my best to provide y’all with the enclosed pictures as long as I could censor them enough for public display here on The Sting Of The Scorpion. I will warn readers that right here is the place to stop reading if certain language is offensive to you, or if sexual situations being explained offend you, or if you don’t want to read about another bizarre trip to the emergency room. For those of y’all sticking around now let me introduce Shawna (pictured above), age 25. who resides in El Paso Texas. She is currently employed as a graphics designer along with others who were at this particular 4th of July party. So here we go.

“Dear Scorpion Sting,

First of all, please forgive me if there are mistakes in my typing since I write this to you with two broken fingers. I didn’t want to wait because pretty much everything is still a fresh memory as I sit here this Sunday morning. I hope you can use a few of the pictures I sent in, I didn’t take any of them except for the ones of my broken fingers, but all the rest were found on my phone afterwards. I am glad someone was nice enough to document me at this party because without the pictures I wouldn’t believe anything I have been told so far. I guess I will start at the beginning here since I never had the intentions of actually partying on the 4th since I was to work on the following Saturday. So this all starts with my dumbass answering a text asking what my plans were for the night.

In many moments of personal weakness I agreed to accompany a girl I work with to a party with many of my coworkers. Honesty, my intent was to hang out somewhere, unnoticed by the others, have a few drinks, and then going home. For the most part this is how I party. When we get there they are already playing a variety of shot games and quickly I was pushed into playing by the crowd. I do shots pretty good so I wasn’t really worried. Shots turned into strip poker, which is my downfall because I suck shit playing cards. After a few hands I had lost my shirt and eventually my bra. But I was doing fair, I had the most clothes on when it was over, I guess everyone grew bored and wanted to quit so we could get more drinking done. I watched as a few guys did kegstands and decided I could do it longer, faster, and better. As a couple of them flipped me upside down into position I shoved the tap in my mouth and let it go. I think they said my time, the time to beat, was 4:10,

They let me down gently and I found me a spot on the couch to watch. I looked for my shirt for a while but had no luck, so fuck it I let it all hang out, I figured it was hot inside and I would worry about a shirt when it comes time to leave. I continue to drink, mostly on the comfort of the couch, but on occasion I would have to wobble into the bathroom, you know. I had sent a text, yes a drunk ass text, to my sister, to come get me because it was well after 2 in the morning. Last trip to the bathroom and then I’m gone. When I opened the bathroom door I tripped on the bottoms of my pants since I was working them down in a damn hurry. When I get up off the floor my pants get hooked on the doorstop so I just kicked them off so I could get on the toilet before it was too late. The good news is I made it, so it was a success. I stood up to bend over to get my jeans when I felt the most fucked up crunching pain, someone was coming in and jammed my hand into the wall down by the floor. After I screamed the person backed off and I was able to pull my hand back. I collapsed to the floor. I ended up against the wall, looking out the wide open door, completely naked, when my sister pops her head around the corner.

We decided I had two broken fingers. We decided it was time to get dressed. We found my jeans, my flip flops, and my phone. I borrowed someone’s T-shirt but had to go commando and braless when we walked out the door. The ride to the emergency room was quiet, my 19 year old sister didn’t want to know anything. We go into the emergency room and because the place was dead I guess, we went right back. After giving up all my information I went to have xrays, which show the last digit of both fingers broken. After they splinted them up I was released, although since I behaved myself, the police weren’t called in, there was talk of me being publically intoxicated. So I escaped going to jail I think. She took me home where I woke up late Saturday evening, missing work altogether, and with a fucking bad hangover. Fingers seem to be doing fine, typing this was interesting though. Hope you find something here to use in your blog. Shawna”

What do I have to say about all of this? It was an interesting story. Based on the rest of the pictures I would have to say there were some things left out, but who am I to judge. So let’s see if categorically she hit any of the criteria. Was there sex? Questionable. Was there blood? No, but there were broken bones. Was there money? No. Was there fame? No. Was there jail? The conditions were there but it falls short. In review, there was a party, drinking, nudity, broken bones, a trip to the emergency room, and a shitload of pictures Shawna didn’t take in her own phone. I think we have a winner and therefore it will be The Magic Weekend; 4th of July edition. Got your personal story ready yet? Just send it in and we will see you here.

A Not So Routine Trip To The E.R.

Often times it is hard to decide what stories make it into The Magic Weekend files. Typically I will not post the story unless it has pictures provided by the sender which can be used in association with the story. I do, however, make exceptions, as in this case, it will be the second exception I have ever made. Why? Its simple really, she sent in 18 pictures with her e-mail, zero which are usable here do to what might be considered to graphic. You may or may not understand, but in her story she does take pictures and she will go on to explain why to y’all. Hers is truly a “Blood” story since it did result in 4 stitches being given in the local emergency room. She did explain that had this not happened to her then her weekend really wouldn’t have been to special. I give you Liz’s story now, she is 23, married, no children mentioned, and lives in Las Vegas Nevada. Warning: there are graphic descriptions of the female anatomy as well as graphic language in the following post.

“This weekend started out as many do for us, get off work late Friday afternoon ready to get home so we can go out on the town. My husband (Justin) and I had decided we wanted to try out a new dance club here in Las Vegas that a few of our friends had been to and said the partying was great. I got home first so I took a quick shower to was my day. As I sat in my towel afterwards, starting my hair, my husband comes in to let me know he had spoke with everyone earlier and we are still on for going out this evening. Pretty soon it was time to get dressed, so I called the girls to find out what they were wearing, we all tend to dress the same as each other already but its nice to check. Last week I had bought a new pair of blue jeans. The store didn’t have my size so I had to go one smaller, no big deal, the tighter the better, and I don’t ever get any complaints from Justin for them being too damn tight. I’m lucky in that regard, my husband is still I’m love with my ass. A common practice I have is going commando in jeans because it leaves absolutely no noticeable lines plus I don’t have to worry about getting all bunched up in the wrong tight places.

Laying on the bed completely naked I grabbed my jeans to wrestle them on. My husband gets a kick out of the show as he finished up shaving. It takes me a few minutes before I get the jeans convinced to be on me. Last step was just zipping them up to seal the deal. All of of a sudden my eyes flashed over white because of the hellish pain I was now in. It hurt so bad I couldn’t even scream. When I sat up carefully to get a better view of what happened I couldn’t bear the pain. I laid back down and called Justin to get in the bedroom. When he came in I explained what I was doing and he tried to hold back the giggles, but failed miserably. I needed him to explain what he could see to me so it could get fixed pronto. ‘Well……shit ……babe…….all I can see it what looks like bloody skin’. He then went in to explain that I zipped over a good bit of skin. When he tried to pull the zipper back down it wouldn’t budge a bit and it hurt so fucking bad I could only scream. But nothing either if us tried did any good, that zipper was very stuck with my flesh still in it. He took some pictures “just for the record” as we made plans to get me off the bed, into his truck, and down to the emergency room. And let me tell you, it was a flesh tearing effort just getting to the e.r. for sure.

We parked in front of the entrance and Justin went in to explain the situation and get someone to help get me inside. A triage technician (Ron) came out to take a look and gage the severity of my injury. Very lucky for me is the fact that I am the only person here right now so I can get seen immediately. I couldn’t begin to imagine having to wait any length of time in the waiting room. In the room now, laid back on an exam table, I feel a cool liquid beginning to run down to the back of my legs. Ron tells me it is an antiseptic to clean the area so the doctor can get in there and get to work. Enter the doctor, his name is Jack, he looks about 13 but assures me he is in his late 30s and I have nothing more to worry about since he will take care of my complaints. Yes, I do have a complaint, the is a zipper holding the fleshy parts of my vagina hostage! The first thing they do is cut away my jeans leaving only a patch surrounding the zipper. Then doctor Jack makes an announcement, the zipper has entrapped aproxamately 1 1/2″ of my right labia majora. That’s right, I zipped a chunk of my labia right up. After six separate shots into the labia and surrounding areas to deaden everything I was feeling no pain. I watched as it took four people to forcibly unzip the zipper to finally get it separated from my now very swollen, very bruised, and somewhat bloody labia.

After a deep cleaning I was taken to have an xray to confirm that no metal remained unseen under the skin anywhere. After the no metal check cleared the doctor gave me 4 stitches to permanently close the four puncture like wounds. I am guessing this will be a fine place to have stitches for the next three weeks. Now that it is time to leave we realized I didn’t have any pants but the nurse was kind enough to give me a pair of disposable scrub pants. I just wanted to go home at that point, lay on the couch a while, put an icepack on my labia, and hope like hell the swelling would go down so it would stop throbbing so badly. Now I can look back and laugh about this entire ordeal. My stitches ate out now yet I am still really tender, I haven’t wore anything but sweat pants and skirts since that night and I think my husband is getting a little concerned. I’m not sure how a person rehabilitates her labia, but so far it has been time. So, that’s that, this is how a pair of jeans can not only change one’s weekend plans but also for a long time after. Too bad there’s not a warning label on or near zippers. I wonder if this has ever happened to any other women. I can’t be the only one, can I? I’m not worried, I know that all will be well in due time. Thanks for taking the time to read my story and I hope the pictures helped explain the predicament.”

We Hate Needles

Originally Posted 22 Febuary 2013

 

One thing my son and I completely share and agree upon is our utter hate and fear of needles. We just avoid them at all costs. Being diabetic it is hard for me to avoid needles since I self inject twice a day and test 3 times a day. Those things for me are unavoidable at this time in my life. My son is still young, 11, and only typically needs immunizations to get thru life. When I was a kid I used to go into absolute panic attacks when approached by a needle for any reason, I have grown out of that and can control it know. I know to accept the terms and press forward. My son, however, has not learned to process his hatred and phobia of needles just yet. I see now what I used to put my mother through when I was younger because to an outsider looking in they see an extremely unruly child, not one who is scared to death being in the mere presence of a single needle of any sorts. I have found commending him on his braveness and a trip to get ice cream usually helps him realize he does not hate me and I am not the meanest dad on the planet. What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Well, a few days ago my son had an accident with a pair of extremely sharp scissors.

 

Wednesday morning I am at work in my normal routine when I get an unexpected call from the nurse at the school my son attends. The short version of the story is that my son has had his hand impaled by a pair of scissors and no amount of pressure or bandages is stopping the bleeding. As I don’t work too far from his school, I informed my supervision that I had an emergency and I will be leaving immediately. When I get to the nurses office at the middle school I see he has his hand held high above his head which had a bandage on it, the nurse holding pressure on it, and there was still blood dripping down his arm. I was a bit shocked because I did not know what to expect exactly since the nurse just said it was a deep wound. I didn’t bother looking at the wound since it was obvious he was going to need some stitches. I could see my little man had been crying since his eyes were very red and I could tell he was pretty confused as to what was going on and the severity of this situation. We leave the school to go get into the truck and the only thing my son seems to be concerned with is getting blood on the seats. I let him know if it happens………it happens. I called his mom real quick to let her know I was on my way to the minor emergency room if she wanted to meet us there. We began to drive while I held pressure on his wound. He laid his head on my shoulder, looked up to me, and told me that everything will be okay, please stop looking so scared. I was scared. I didn’t know what to expect. Nobody wants to see their baby bleeding and in pain.

 

We arrived at the minor emergency room pretty quick. His mom was waiting for us as she works right across the street form it. We go in, the nurse sees the the bleeding and escorts my son and I back to the exam room. They held my wife back to do the paperwork. Immediately the doctor unwrapped his hand to asses the injury. He pointed out that nothing important had been struck and it will be a simple fix. Talk about being relieved. So, while they prepped to do stitches they set out a container with betadine for his to soak his hand in for a bit. Its time to start. I knew what was coming. We were fixing to be very unhappy campers. My son laid back and I positioned myself over his chest where I could block his view and hold down his hand and arm. At this point I had realized how strong he has become, this had the potential to not be easy. I knew the instant the first shot to deaden the area had happened because I saw the sheer terror in his eyes. I watched as shot number 2 and shot number 3 were injected directly into the wound. It was extremely hard to watch but it was better than seeing my sons face, something I could not bear to watch. As the doctor began his first stitch I turned my attention to my son, his head cradled in my open arm, I continued to talk to him as I stroked the top of his head. The procedure took about 10 minutes, a time which does not compute in the mind of my son who said it felt like days long, mot minutes long. As soon as it all wrapped up my wife finally made it in. She got there just in time to hear the doctor tell us care instructions and a stitch removal date, which is seven days. When we left to head home and my wife to work I detoured, of course, to stop for ice cream to soothe the trauma my son just experienced.

 

So, by now you are probably wondering what happened to wound his hand. Its a funny story, actually, and so simple that it still bewilders me how such a wound could happen. My son was in science class, working on a partnered project of sorts. He reached for his scissors without looking while at the same exact moment his partner was reaching for them. Both both had a grip on the scissors when his partner realized what was happening and let go. That force from letting go resulted in the scissors impaling my sons hand. When the scissors where removed the blood began squirting, resulting in a swift trip to the nurses office, and resulting in the phone call I received.  See, simple. Now, my son believes he is joining my club, the club of scarred boys. A club where he will one day be able to tell his stories about his scar to anyone who chooses to listen. I, of course, got a big laugh from this as I didn’t know I actually belonged to a club. I do have scars, 19 visible scars, which have been explained many times to him over the years. He says I have most of my scars to remind me of how I cheated death one day, I chuckle at that also. Maybe he will be lucky, maybe he will only get this, his second surgical scar. But, like I always say, life happens in unpredictable ways which we can’t always control. I can’t express how proud I am of my son, he faced his worst needle experience to date with little fuss or muss.

Waking Up

Originally Posted 18 Febuary 2013

Early last week my wife noticed I was not awake, in fact I had overslept about 30 minutes before she decided to wake me up. She thought I was sick, she said I was pale in color, cold skin, but covered in my own sweat. After a few minutes, she realized I was unresponsive to any degree. Soon enough she was able to get me awake for the most part. I told her my chest was on fire, I had extreme chest pains and a severe headache. While I sat on the edge of my bed she got my sugar meter and pricked my finger. My count was 43. She mentioned I was hypoglycemic (insulin shock) while she helped me get dressed. We were going to the emergency room. Her assumption was correct, although I slept thru the beginning of it. The doctor told her if she had not noticed me when she did that I very well might have died in my sleep. I don’t recall most of this, I was pretty out of it to say the least. By the end of the 2nd day I became responsive to the medication, taken out of the I.C.U., and put in a regular room to be monitored. The following morning I was released as if nothing ever happened.I went back to work the following day since the doctor had released me to do so. That afternoon I began to experience the same symptoms so I called my wife. She came and got me and we went to the emergency room once again, where I was admitted once again, and I started the whole process all over. But this time, after allot of blood test, a reason was determined to why this was happening. In simple terms, for some reason my blood pressure medication was interacting adversely with my diabetes medication. The funny thing is that I have been taking everything the same way for a long time now and never had anything like this happen. So why now. Nobody seems to know. So, my blood pressure medication, the one that has been working beautifully for the past 8 years, has been changed. I will just have to see how that actually works now. I am not a big fan of change, especially when something isn’t broken. So, hopefully the new “plan” works with grand success because I really hate hospitals.

Pretty much everything I have written here today was told and/or explained to me as I don’t remember much about being in the hospital either time. I do know that I am in no hurry to go back. On the flipside of that, I am very glad my wife knows what she knows because without her quick response that morning who knows what would have happened. Even though she stayed the nights with me, she had to go to work during the days, but checked on me when time permitted. Unfortunately they would not let my kids in to see me in the I.C.U. for a variety of reasons. Which is good, I doubt seriously I was in any condition I wanted them to see me in. In the end, I look at it like this, it obviously was not my time to go. I never thought that having diabetes would be so challenging. Proof that doing the right thing doesn’t always have the right results.

My son expressed his happiness that I didn’t die. This cut me to my very core. I answered with humor as I didn’t exactly know how to answer him. I explained that I will die one day and so far this was a good day because it didn’t happen today. Its hard to say who is more afraid, he or I. For the last 2 nights he has slept on the floor on my side of the bed to help “keep an eye on me”. It brings tears to my eyes knowing that my son worries about his dear old man the way he does. Whereas my wife and daughters “ignore” the situation and as my daughters explained, “it can’t happen to our dad so there isn’t anything to be worried about”. How can a dad reply to that other than I told them I love y’all too.

A Moment In Time Became A Memory

Originally Posted 28 January 2013

Remembering yester-year seems to happen to me more often than not in my life lately. I don’t think I am trying to figure anything out; I don’t think I wish to re-live any specific event, but something seems to trigger a lot of reminiscent memories for me. Perhaps, as suggested by my wife, I have too much “down time” and my mind begins to wander. Maybe she is right; of course I will never admit that she might be right, that would be marital suicide. Just so happens that this story I will be telling shortly has it’s memory sparked quite a bit from different sources and for different reasons. It happens when the subject is brought up directly, mostly brought up by my father, it happens when someone asks or talks about my dayglo orange Volkswagen Thing, or about when my ex and I were inseparable while dating. It is all true, I did drive a VW Thing and we did date 3 years of high school, dated 2 years of me being in college, and we did get married, stayed married for 12 years, divorced finally, and she is now my ex. We were together for a long time I suppose, some might say, myself included, that we were never really meant to spend our entire life together, some might say we should have never been together in the first place. But, those are not the answers I seek to share here today. I have made some promises to some friends, one who is even a doctor, that I would share my own personal story of a bizarre trip to the emergency room way back in the summer of 1984. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of any sort to share. Even if I did it might be just a wee bit too graphic. So, anyway, here we go.

 

Back when my ex was my girlfriend it wasn’t exactly a match made in heaven. I knew of her, but one could say she wasn’t my type. My freshman year in high school I “dated” a few different girls on a regular basis. Part of this was because I had a car and a driver’s license. Both of which were unheard of for a freshman at that time. How I got both is altogether a different story. We will leave it at the fact that I had both and they were my ticket to having more fun than the average freshman. In fact, not to sidetrack from the story, I lost my own virginity on the hood of that VW Thing. Anyway, I met my ex while I dated her younger sister, younger by a year in case you are interested. She used to give me hell because she knew we were out drinking and doing things to each other that are better left unspoken at the dinner table or in church for that matter. Soon enough my sophomore year started and I was talking with one of my friends who happened to also be one of my ex’s friends as well, they have been lifelong friends, I was the new person to the “group”. My ex wouldn’t give me the time of day as girlfriends tend to talk about things and I have done most of those things with most of her friends. What can I say, I was addicted to sex, not love, not romance, just raw emotionless sex. No commitment, no flowers, no cards, and no bullshit strings attached. I always had two things at my ready disposal, alcohol and my car. From my gathering, I never thought any of them ever had a problem with my “arrangement”. Well, not until they started dating for real, then the things I got to do were their dirty little secrets. As I write this I remember always waiting for the “I am pregnant scenario” to unfold, but it never did. Then one day, out of the blue, I was trying to con my way into a date with my ex. I not only got the cold shoulder but I also was on the receiving end of some real choice words. Such a mouth she had! I never pursued anyone like I did her. It was way beyond lust, it was way beyond being told no, it was deep and I started developing feelings for her the more we talked. We actually became friends, in private of course, because in public and in front of her friends she was a complete bitch to me without warning. But when we were away from them, she was nice to me and I was nice to her. It was all but a very confusing game we played. To this day I still don’t completely understand it.

 

We did begin dating, very traditional dating. I would pick her up from her house, I would sit and talk with her parents, we would go to eat or to see a movie or go to the mall, always making sure she was home by 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, the only two days I was allowed to take her anywhere by her parents. Whereas I didn’t have a curfew, not even on weekdays. My parents had an unspoken rule about my curfew which was I continued to keep my straight A average in all classes and stay out of jail. I did both with little effort. We dated for a few months, 3 or 4, and our relationship really developed, she would even hold my hand in school and in public, she would kiss me no matter who was able to see it, and she was nice to me always. She alienated most of her friends because all of her spare time was spent only with me. Her sister had a softball game one night during the week, a late game, didn’t even start until 8:30 p.m. or so. Her mom said we could go see her since it was a play-off game and also because it was 4 blocks from their house. That night was misty with light rain on occasion but not enough to stop any of the games or delay them. I went to pick up my ex at her house. I had to wait for her to finish getting ready so I sat and talked with her mom for a bit. When my ex walked out I was knocked out with how she looked. She normally had a real “preppy” look, always slacks and a blouse of sorts or a long skirt with a blouse. I had never seen her in anything else, ever, never before did she dress it down. But on this night she chose to surprise me, she was wearing some skin tight Levis 501 jeans and a t-shirt with her sister’s team on it. Want to talk about impressed, that doesn’t even begin to describe it. So we get in the car to go to the ball park and she looked at me and asked if I liked her new look. She explained that it was because of me and a few comments I made about her dressing like an old lady all the time. It was never said to be mean or to actually be taken seriously, it was always me just joking around. She told me why we were driving that her jeans were so tight that she was unable to wear any panties. Yea, they were that damn tight. We parked, walked to the field her sister was to be playing at, got a couple soft drinks, and went to the top of the bleachers to sit. We sat there to watch her sister’s team wipe the field with the other team sealing the deal for their place in the championship coming up. Her sister came to where we were and told us that she was going to get a ride home from a team mate’s mom and for us not to worry about it. After a short conversation she went back down and left.

 

My ex and I sat up there on what had become cold and wet bleachers for a little while after everybody left. We watched the entire cleanup and the shutting down of everything as we just sat there and talked. We were making plans for the summer coming up since she knew I was going to be home this summer because my dad had died in his accident the summer before. It was a touchy subject with me so she didn’t bring it up much. Our plans included trips to the beach and the local lakes and such. She had mentioned that she wanted me to help her pick out a new bathing suit and how she was looking forward to me being there. She was talking about a few things that night, it was different, she was opening up to me and at the same time re-assuring me that our relationship was indeed sincere. By now they had turned the field lights off and almost everyone that was there is now gone. It’s time to go; I don’t need to get either of us into any trouble for being too late. We stood up and began to make our way down the bleachers. About three quarters of the way down she lost her footing and slipped. I was right beside her, had ahold of her hand, and when she fell her hand was yanked out of my own. When she fell, she landed in a fashion which she ended up straddling the bench seat portion of the aluminum bleachers. She let out an instant scream; she was in pain, serious pain. We both got her back on her feet so we could get off the bleachers all the way. She was bleeding real bad, the crotch of her pants quickly became dark with blood. It was hard to see, she sat on the last bleacher bench and guided my hand to where she was injured, when I pulled my hand back it was covered in warm blood. We still didn’t know exactly what got cut so we walked to the restrooms so we could assess what happened. By now the blood was very visible and it was coming on strong. Once we got her jeans unbuttoned it was still unclear where she was bleeding from. I imagined sliding her pants down one day, wondering what I would see then, but had no idea that the first time I slid her pants down that it was going to be to see where she was injured. It was very severe, she didn’t have a cut or slice, she had a “rip” in her skin, more specifically, she had ripped one entire labia majora and it was bleeding profusely to say the least. I pinched her bloody labia between my thumb and forefinger to try to stop the bleeding, she looked as if she was going to black out. I wadded up some paper towers to hold on it, gave her instructions to hold decent pressure on it, and I left to go get the car. Due to the nature and arrangement of the ball parks I could only get back so close to the restrooms. When I went back in to get her she was standing in a giant puddle of her own blood. I wadded up more paper towels, held them in place, and we tried to get her pants back up, buttoning them was impossible. When we got into the car it seemed like she was beginning to bleed heavier, so I took a towel I had rolled up in the back seat and we stuffed that down into her pants. The command decision was made to take her to the emergency room and go from there. It was a rough ride for her, every motion the car made caused her extreme pain.

 

When I pulled into the emergency room I helped her out of the car and we went inside. She was immediately taken to the back for assessment. I, on the other hand, got to stand out front where I got the 3rd degree. My story, for some reason, was beyond belief and I was all but called a liar and a rapist. Her parents arrived soon enough, as well as my own parents, and the deputy sheriff. Everyone had questions; both of us were talked too multiple times by multiple people. I was liar and she was covering for me somehow or another. That’s neither here nor there, but it made me feel very “low” as if somehow this entire situation was my fault. Her family asked me to leave because they didn’t want to deal with me at that point in time, I would be dealt with later and I wouldn’t like it. Meanwhile, the drama was happening at the front entrance. Seems the blood that had been dripping out the floorboard drain holes had begun to puddle up and became very visible, enough that cops were called to check it all out. My car was seized as evidence and towed off. I was taken into police custody for questioning. After all the paperwork was done I was released into the custody of my parents, who still didn’t believe what happened. The following morning, as I was being taken to school by my dad, we drove by the park, which at that point had police and crime scene investigators doing their thing. (Did I mention she lost a whole hell of a lot of blood?) Later in the day the story was in the local paper, which in the article asked the public to step forward with information on what had to be a homicide. My called the crime stoppers number, police came to the house, went to my ex’s house, and finally sorted it all out as being one long connected event that took place the night before. I was not allowed to speak with my ex by her parents for an entire week; my own parents were forbidding it as well, but for different reasons. The only reason I got to speak to her was because she had returned to school. We were able to talk then. She told me while she was in the emergency room that investigators ordered the rape test to be completed. When they figured out she was still an intact virgin then that too passed. She got 17 stiches total starting from the lower (anus side) all the way to the top of the labia majora ending inside at that point. (Sorry, it’s kind of hard to describe.) The stitches were done “neatly” by the surgeon yet she was told that one day she might have to have plastic surgery for cosmetic purposes as he did not know how it would heal or how it would scar in the end. She went thru a hell of an ordeal but she remained with me because we both knew that the rest of them were full of shit. What was told was what happened, nothing more, nothing less. Later that day, she offered to show me her stitches. Between the stitches and the bruising I was hard pressed to even think what I was seeing looked like any vagina I had ever seen. In due time the stitches came out, the swelling went away, and the bruising went away, but the scar was staying for life. After 30 days I got my car back. About the same time both sets of parents eased up and agreed to let us continue dating. From that point forward one of my favorite things to do was to simply trace her scar with my finger tip, she never seemed to mind, dressed or undressed.

 

Years went by and we were married and soon after along came my now oldest daughter. When she was born it was hilarious because the mid-wife had a lot of questions about the scar, still visible as an indention in the skin. For fun, I will share what I consider a “funny ha ha” about my ex-wife. When we were in the process of getting our divorce, she had moved in with her boyfriend, and I was packing up all of our personal belongings so I could give her hers. I came across a card, on the envelope was the word “Scar” and the paragraph written inside started with “Scar, blah blah blah……” and was signed by the jackhole she was now shacked up with. I thought to myself, wondering, as I have done on some other occasions since, with a simple question. Does she think of me each time someone sees her scar, does she think of me when someone inquires about the scar, does she think of me when another man touches her scar, does it still tickle, does she tell the story? Of course, I will never know, but I have always wondered. Anyway, that’s the story. Sorry I was unable to present y’all with a visual representation; if I had a picture I would sure share it.