Thursday, July 22, 2010

If we had a Time Machine, things would be different

There is a large piece of glass embedded about 3/4 of an inch in the meaty part of my son's hand. It is on the Karate chopping side of the thing, and blood is dripping all over the place, He is crying, and my daughter is screaming at the top of her lungs. A piece of glass about a half inch, by one inch may not seem huge, but it is a matter of perspective. a piece of Glass in a window really wouldn't be remarkable at all, when it is in part of your 9 year old son's flesh, that's just a HUGE piece of glass in a place it absolutely has no business being in. Its like a Vegetarian eating out at a restaurant called Meat World. Things that just don't belong. -

Because it was a lot of blood that was dripping out everywhere, I wanted to stop it, but did not think pulling the piece of glass out of his hand would be wise, because although it was causing the bleeding, it was also acting kind of like a plug as well. That little piece of glass is kind of like a football helmet. on the one hand a helmet protects your head while playing football, on the other hand because players have a helmet, they don't worry about their head and actively use their noggins when tackling, thus creating head injuries. Its a very Ying Yang kind of situation. Same thing with this piece of glass in his hand, it was like a football players helmet, only without a chin strap or any of those little attaboy stickers like they put on at THE Ohio State University.
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The EMT's arrived lickity split, but even as fast as they were, all the neighbors heard the banshee like screaming of my daughter and came out into the street where all this was happening. Including the beautiful Doctor lady from across the street, she was still in her scrubs and also not wearing a bra, and My Ex-wife's High school classmate that actually lives upstairs from me. Nice neighbors, each and everyone of them and the beautiful doctor lady from across the street was packing a serious first aid kit, We wrapped him up with the gauze and declined the ambulance ride. I took him to the Emergency room with hardly any blood drops in my car, and we acted like Americans in an E.R. Meaning we sat around a lot and waited. I will say this though, If you have to go to an Emergency room, do it with a 9 year old kid that has a puncture/ gash wound, because for seriousness yall, It was a comparably quick visit, A little less then 3 hours total from the time in, to the time out. Also a very cool thing about The Tampa General Emergency Room, they have Valet Parking.
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During some of the time while we were waiting, My Son wished out loud that he had a time machine so that he could go back and NOT push his hand through the entry door window and instead watch some T.V. I told him that if we had a time machine we could also fix some other mistakes we have made in life as well, plus, probably bet large amounts of money on the outcomes of sporting events that we already know the outcome. In one of his other fine moments during this process, he said that he did not wish this on his sister if they could trade places... (ahhhhh Sweet) but then he followed up by saying he wished some other "random" Kid would have been cut up instead of him.... Okay, we may still need to work on his compassion a little, but he is not wishing it on his sister, who was the one who slammed the glass door on him in the first place (they were playing around and could not envision that glass is breakable, I guess) -editors note: My daughter wants it to be clear she did not MEAN to do it, and it was as much his fault as it was hers which is all true
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Anyhow, that was the way Tuesday Night went down. Plus there was a call to my ex-wife to let her know of the situation, there were grape Popsicles and stickers and a grumpy old administrator lady that seemed really put out when I asked if we could get the pain medication changed from a pill form to liquid.
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The next night was Softball night and I had to explain to him why he could not use his hand to play catch for a couple of weeks until the thing heals. He got 7 stitches and is quite proud of the blood trail out on the sidewalk in front of the house.

3 comments:

Jordi said...

Ouch. That just looks like it hurt. The whole time machine thing made me laugh.

NTF said...

I love that in this moment of crisis you still kept your wits about you enough to appreciate that the beautiful doctor lady was not wearing a bra. Way to be the man!

Bill From Gainesville said...

Jordi -- It did look like it hurt, and when the ER doctor was cleaning out tiny little glass fragments it was just GROSS...
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NTF - I wasn't trying to look at her boobs but she didn't realize that as she was leaning over her Scrub shirt is V-necked and was kind of loose.