From Laundry Room to Emergency Room

My next preventive care treatment. (image found here)

It started with an attempt at doing laundry and ended with stitches and crutches. Yup – only I could manage to send myself to the ER for wanting to wash some dirty underwear.

I was trying to help my family clean up the apartment before my mom was released from the hospital, so I went for the hamper. The building my parents live in has a separate laundry room that is shared by the other tenants, so I went out the front door, arms full of laundry, quarters and detergent.

That’s when I encountered the screen door to the laundry room. Seeing that it was open a crack, I fatefully attempted to open the door with my foot, rather than do the logical thing, which would have been to put down the laundry and use my hands to open it.

When I tried to free my foot of the door, the edge of it somehow got caught in my stupid flat and the next thing I knew, I was going down. Whoever designed the laundry room thought it would be a good idea to create a step up into the room, and line the edge of that step with metal.

My knees broke my fall, and came crashing down right on that metal edge – and of course I was wearing boxer shorts. Immediately I thought, “Oh my god. I can’t walk.” I rolled over to see I had a huge chunk taken out of my right knee and there was blood everywhere.

I began frantically calling my sisters names. I laid on the ground for five freaking minutes. The apartment was only a few feet away and I couldn’t understand why they weren’t hearing me call for them. Finally a neighbor came out to see if I needed help, and that’s when I see my littlest sister poke her head around the corner. Her face turned white.

My sisters immediately helped me back into the apartment where I nearly passed out - I was in so much pain. Apparently when I was screaming for them, one sister was doing dishes, while the other one was singing into the intercom that greeted guests downstairs to see if she could scare innocent passersby. My sisters heard my screams and thought I was being attacked outside. Rather than meeting my attacker, they opted for the safer option which was to ignore me and stay inside. Thanks sissies!

All sarcasm aside, once they realized I was having an emergency, my sisters were a huge help and got me to the ER by calling a cab. My other sister ran to the store in record speed for gauze, Neosporin and Band-Aids to save the backseat of the cab from looking like a massacre had occurred there.

I kept telling them not to tell mom so she wouldn’t worry. The daughter that was supposed to be in San Fran helping her recover from a liver transplant was in fact in the hospital bed next to her.

After bleeding all over the waiting room for three hours, I finally got some x-rays and three stitches. The x-rays showed nothing was broken, but because I still can’t bear any weight on it, they suspect I may have a fracture on my kneecap or a torn ligament. Rather than waiting longer to get an MRI in the ER, they sent me home with crutches and narcotics to manage the pain until I could get seen in Washington.

The next day I told my mom, and she was released from the hospital and brought home. We both just laid on the couch hopped up on pain killers together. They made us really emotional and we both watched Oprah and sobbed on the couch. It was a bonding moment.

My mom was feeling stronger each day and ended up taking care of ME. It was terrible!

Three days later I adventurously made it back to Washington after harassing airport personnel for wheelchairs and aisle seats. Some were more than happy to help out a gimp, while others seemed to have better things to do, like make the injured feel like an inconvenience to them. I swear to god this gate agent I encountered was prejudice against crutches or something. But I’ll let bygones be bygones and count my blessings that I made it home.

Sweet Boyfriend picked me up from Seatac and wheeled his gimpy girlfriend back to the car. He has done so much for me these past two weeks and I dreaded telling him that he would need to continue heavily assisting me after I returned. But so far, he’s done it all with a smile and even drove me to dim sum. He knows how to make me happy J That’s why we love him!

I went to urgent care today where they helped redress my wound which was starting to get disgusting due to a reaction I’m having to Neosporin (because I have a knack for finding ways to make a bad situation worse), and I have an appointment with my regular physician on Monday to see about getting my third MRI for the year.

Did I mention that I also have to use my bad hip to hobble around on my crutches? It’s painful and exhausting. I really am turning into a geriatric. Or a complete mess.

Sigh.

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but I can manage to break everything else.