Shocking How a Split Second Can Change Everything!

Here it is Thursday already.  I last posted on Monday.  I had planned on doing some organizational "tuts" for you, but something happened that has put me on a totally different track.

The WORST part of the whole thing is I have to be STILL or I hurt.  It is not easy for me to be still. Tomorrow at 4:00, I have to have an MRI and from what I hear, I have to be PERFECTLY STILL for 30 minutes while lying in a tube the size of a straw.  H E L P !  I told Jerry that I want a steak dinner when it is over.

So WHAT happened?

This did:

This was yesterday, the day after I went to ER and got stitches.

This was this morning.  It looks even more lovely than yesterday!

And this lump on my arm has gone down a bit, but my whole arm is sore when touched.

Terry was quilting a quilt on the longarm, and I was attempting to redo the black/blue blouse, which I'm not sure I've shown you yet.  I remembered that I had ordered some beads for a project I was working on, and I decided to run downstairs and walk up the looooooong ROCK driveway to our mailbox.

My next decision is what caused the incident.  I decided to take the dogs with me.  We have two big 80-pound dogs -- as you know -- Jackie and Josie.  I always put Jackie on a leash and let Josie run free because Josie will not run away unless Jackie can run away too.  I always wrap the leash from my left wrist around my back on into my right hand.  I felt like it gave my whole body the ability to hold Jackie instead of just my wrist, and I have done it several times in the past.

WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, this time proved to be a real bad mistake!  We had walked a short distance when I realized I was lying on the ground, and the ground was wet under my face.  Jackie was still attached to the leash.  I had NO memory of actually falling.  I knew I was in trouble, so I reached up and unhooked the leash from Jackie.  She and Josie took off.  SUCH LOYALTY!  

I did not have my cell phone, so I knew I HAD to get back in the house and get Terry's attention.  I grabbed my unzipped hoodie front and held it up to my face to catch the blood, and I went into the house.  I got to the bottom of the stairs where I had to scream for Terry because the longarm was running and the radio was on.  It is a miracle she finally heard me.  

Terry FIRST prayed for me, and then she helped me to my bedroom where I laid down.  She called Jerry at the store, and Jerry dropped what he was doing and came right home.  

We don't have much to pick from in the way of hospitals where we live, but I figured our mini-hospital in Madill could at least sew up the gash in my face.  Jerry took me to the ER.  They weren't busy, and they took me right in.  There was only a P.A. on duty and a nurse who talked kind of funny.  Both were very nice!  The P.A., Karen, said that I needed to have my head x-rayed (HOW many times have I heard that!?) because it sounded like I had passed out.  They wanted to rule out a brain bleed.  I thought it was silly, but ....

Evidently, the mini-hospital didn't have the world's brightest Radiologist on duty.  The x-ray of my head showed a mass of some kind.  He determined it could either be a non-benign meningioma OR a brain bleed.  Next thing I know, the nurse comes in and tells me to remove my blouse.  She puts a hospital gown on me.  Then she sticks a needle as big as an ice pick in my arm!  Jerry is sitting in the corner, and he is staring at me and I'm staring at him.  Jerry says, "WHAT is going on???"

The nurse tells us that they have called an Ambulance, and that I'm going to be transferred to another hospital in Oklahoma City.  They tell me my brain might be bleeding and I might die if they don't get me there soon enough!  

I KNEW I was okay.  I felt perfectly fine except for the SCREAMING PAIN in my vein from the ice pick she had just shoved in me.  

THEN, we waited.  My gash was still open, and nobody was paying the least bit of attention to it.  I was there SIX hours!  Jerry left to go home and find the dogs.  Terry came to relieve him.  Terry was there when Karen came back in to finally sew up my gash.  ANOTHER NEEDLE poked into the wound FOUR TIMES!  Finally, it was numb and sewn up.  I'm praying it doesn't leave a scar that makes my eyebrow appear to go all the way to my cheek!  I was having enough trouble with my eyebrows as it was!

Karen, the P.A., was beside herself.  She had spent most of the hours ON THE PHONE trying to figure out where to send me.  Mercy -- where I wanted to go -- would not take me.  It seems that Obama decided to make a law that you have to go to a certain place that is "on call" when you have a trauma incident.  Nobody could figure out WHO was on call or WHERE!

After 4 or 5 hours, Karen was able to reach the on call location where she was able to talk to another Radiologist who -- I guess -- was able to look at the picture of my brain.  He told her immediately that it WAS NOT a brain bleed.  The Neuro doctor told her to send me home and have me go to my own doctor and order an MRI.

I'm really fine.  I only hurt if I move.  My arm and my chest and my face.  No broken ribs.  I am very lucky.  I think of soldiers who come home missing limbs and even their minds, and I can't imagine how horrible it is for them and their families.

The dogs are gone.  I returned them to my daughter and her husband, Len, from whence they came.  Len sold them both this morning.  Each one went for $500 to a very good home with well-to-do people.  I feel like the fact that they paid for them is a sign they will really love them as we did.  They won't be together any more, and I imagine they will both be a lot calmer alone than they were together.

Won't keep you.  That was a looooooooooooong story!

Hugs, Joy