An evening that changed my mind

It was hump day. I had been feeling particularly humped by about three thirty in the afternoon when there was more work to be done than I had time or workers to do. An unanticipated extra effort came out of no where and I did a few people's jobs I don't normally do. I stayed later than I wanted to stay and completed tasks I would normally pawn off onto other people, so they could do more of the real work load.

Closing procedures are some of the most mundane activities of the day for me. Making sure someone didn't forget something. It wouldn't be so bad, but these people never forget to do these things they are asked to. They've been doing it for several years now and have pretty much gotten it down.

I walked outside of the building a few minutes before five pm. Checking the trucks is one of those tiresome tasks. It used to be relaxing over the summer on a nice day. I'd walk out there checking the windows, headlights, chock and enjoy the cool breeze and the blue skies. Now it's winter and the climate has actually started to change in these early weeks of January. The days of December and fifty degrees are long gone***. A bite to the wind made me sure to bundle up before I went out. I wore my black stocking cap and my trusty work jacket. It's a funny thing about work jackets. They seem so cheap and inexpensive but despite how unappealing they look on a whole they tend to keep you pretty warm.

All four semi's were parked in a row. I had made my way around each one. Not one had a window open, a head light on, a door unlocked, a trailer unchocked or were left unplugged*. The last truck was a straight truck, meaning the storage part didn't disconnect in the way a semi does. It had been parked in between the shipping dock and the receiving dock. When a truck is not backed up to the building we are forced to inspect the cargo area to be sure that no forgotten product was left behind.

This particular truck was parked here because it wasn't going to be used for the next day's delivery by it's normal driver. He had fallen out of the back of it on his first delivery of the day. He continued to work all day long and only told me later. Which is when I was taken away from my normal work to fill out an accident form and demand he get medical attention. Our Workman's comp place sent him to the hospital for x-rays. He's not coming back to work until Monday. He seemed pretty upset about it, but I tried to convince him it was like a four day weekend and he should rest and enjoy it.

I grabbed the handle to the back door of the vehicle. It was tougher to open than I expected from this truck seeing how it was a brand new vehicle we picked up earlier in the month. I suspect that there was a bit of an angle that it was parked at causing some torque to be applied to the frame which set the doors slightly out of alignment. I pulled harder with more of my body weight as pseudo strength. The handle didn't need that much help because at a certain point the torque was transferred to the handle and it flew out of my hand. Nearly instantaneously after that I was doubled over in pain with my eyes closed and my hands over my face.

I didn't realize how close to the truck my face was. I took a pretty good hit above my right eyebrow. It hit right at the double folded edge of the stocking cap. I don't know if that cushioned the blow or not. When I could stand up and open my eyes again the right one began to water. I walked back inside. Having just filled out an accident report for Jorge it was fresh on my mind as the next course of action. Not having any medical background it didn't occur to me what type of injuries are severe enough to forgo this procedure. I completed it and took it to my supervisor. Dumb founded by the accident having also been involved with Jorge's case he took me to his boss.

She started asking me questions and while I was able to answer them, there didn't seem to be any urgency on my part. At this point our medical facility was closed and they probably would have sent me to a hospital anyway. She called my wife and they worked out a hospital to take me to. Memorial in South bend. My boss Roy drove me. They decided I shouldn't drive. I left my car at work in the next city.

Roy dropped me off at the Emergency Room. I'd been to this hospital before, visiting other people. I walked through automated doors and into a labyrinth of insufficiently marked areas. I walked twenty feet in not seeing anything that struck me as where I should be. I walked back towards the exit hoping Roy would soon be in to help me. When he came in I told him "I don't know where to go." The ease in which he took me over to a window where people were working let me deduct that something wasn't completely right with me. It was interesting that how lost and in need of help I was and that none of those people who responded to Roy wouldn't even make contact with me.

They took me back to Triage 3 right away. Head injuries are a bit of a top priority I guess. I was alone in a u-shaped room with a curtain for a wall. It wasn't much bigger than most single person public toilets. The walls were beige. I was visited by two women, one in blue and one in beige. It seemed like these colors best matched their skin tones but I learned later that they were color coded by the jobs they held. I was asked on no less than three occasions what my name, birth date, ssn and various addresses and phone numbers I could be reached at if I did in fact outlive the night.

Roy was unable to come back with me. I'm not sure if that was stated to him or a decision he made on his own. I could see an eye chart where I was sitting and everything seemed to be fine with the world around me. What felt off was me. I didn't have an ounce of concern about any of the things that had been bothering me in days leading up to this event. My computer was giving me problems and my job was getting more complicated, but I didn't care. I felt solid and untouched by these events. I was more interested in current events involving, directly me. This is when the fear set in. I had seen several episodes of 3lbs, before they cancelled it. The brain is a very complex and mystical organ. It wasn't very difficult to think that my sudden lack of pain, discomfort and emotion were caused by internal bleeding suffocating those portions of my brain.

When there seems to be no up or down and one is completely lost, I have decided that regardless of what happens it's time to take a moment to thank Jesus. You don't have to voice your comments, questions or concerns because he/God knows what you're thinking. So I'm not sure if there was a nurse or anyone else there when the tears began to well up, but I said probably more quiet than I realize and mostly to myself "Thank you, Jesus." In a brief moment of hope that he would do what ever he thought was best.

Not more than five minutes later Keely (my wife) and Shelly (our friend**) walked around the curtain. "What are you doing to me?" Keely said crying as she bent down to hug me. "I don't know." I replied. Shelly was also, almost crying. "I'm gonna head out now." Roy said and I waved him on thanking him for the ride over to the hospital.

We were then taken to a room. I was asked to strip down to my underwear. I'm all man and made a professional decision that it didn't matter if Shelly was present to see me take my clothes off or not. She was a professional hospital employee and so I barely hesitated. It's not like we both hadn't been completely naked in a pool together at some point. My mind wasn't exactly right because a certain inhibition was released when I began talking about the sex dream I had the night before involving Keely, Shelly and a famous black woman and man. The black couple weren't actually a couple, and I couldn't remember who they were. All I could remember is that no one was having sex with me. Ripoff is the only brand of sex dream I tend to have.

Shell said (from her hospital knowledge) that we were in RTA. She also told us that that was where they put people whom the hospital has little immediate concern for.

I was seen by the orderly from terminator 2, the one that licks her face when she's restrained. When a doctor finally came to see me, he seemed upset that I had neither pain nor discomfort of any kind. I know that's because the severity of brain damage is hard to tell by looking at the outside. Shelly quickly told us as he left that he was the most attractive doctor in the hospital. This information only lead me to believe that the hospital was unable to attract handsome doctors. She really thinks he's hot, Keely kind of agreed. For an older gentlemen he was good looking. I failed to see it, and at times I can be pretty gay when it comes to determining the sexuality of men. However everyone has their own taste.

A cat scan is what they decided that I needed. It took a while for my transporter to arrive. He was black and had dreadlocks. I assumed he was Jamaican but the few words he spoke to me didn't give away any real hints to his accent. It was not American. He didn't like me. It was a distance between my room and the cat scan room. We traveled down hallways that gradually were less populated by people and then by light. He rolled me into a room and said "Some one will be with you in a moment." (when I retold that part to Shelly and Keely I added some "Jah's and Mon's"). It's jealousy not racism. I felt bad for him. He gave the general disposition of someone who didn't like his job. His breathing was heavy as he pushed the wheelchair I was in. The wheels felt like they may have had something wrong with them and then there is the fact that i weigh 325lbs. (I'm working on that).

I was in a room with the device and a no one else. In the next room on the other side of a wall of windows were two guys. They didn't make eye contact with me. Finally one came out. He had long hair and almost enough facial hair to detract from his large nose. He spoke to me in hippie/surfer/hard rock "dudes" and "Mans." He earned his stereotype and wore it well. Asking a person to lay down on a cat scan, who has just suffered a head injury, might require a little more information, is not a thought that crossed his mind. It was a bit of a puzzle to me. I know where the head goes, but at the opposite end of that table is where they put the pillows. Instead of pillows on the end that faces the machine there was a sheet covering what looked like some sort of robotic vice for mangling. I wasn't terribly keen on putting any part of my body into that, so I asked for help. "Where does my head go?" and it was as I feared, in the vice.

When you are in place the thing shoots lasers at you so the technician can line you up correctly. This is my first cat scan and I wasn't having a good time. I didn't know if it was going to be loud or what exactly it looked or sounded like when the machine was behaving normally. All I could think about is the guillotine and the last images I saw of the Saddam hanging. To help with this procedure I wasn't given any instructions. Either ol' boy was too stoned to remember or I simply looked like a veteran of head trauma. It moved the table I was on and the center portion of the ring I was in. It made what I can only now describe as calibration movements. That's what I assume since when the sporadic movements stopped a tiny voice came to me like a megaphone through a drive-thru intercom that said a few things but the only one I heard was "don't move." I think that is when the procedure began.

When the commotion stopped and I was back outside the machine looking up I saw a sticker. It was the informational kind and I felt compelled to read it. I don't know if it was upside down or not. Sometimes I don't seem to have problems reading upside down. It was less than an inch away from an aperture where one of the lasers came out of. The letters were fine and I had to concentrate. It read something to the effect of "Do not stare into the laser." Were the laser actually on I would not have been able to read the sign and obey it at the same time. This made my day. I live for this kind of idiocy.

My hippie came back out to tell me that it was over. He also suggested that I not try to hop off the table because it was a few feet higher in the air that it was when I got on. It is odd that now that the scary part was over he became filled with useful "what-to-do-next" information. Including the info that my transport would arrive shortly. Before retreating into his little glass room where he would once again ignore me, he opened two doors. I almost made a run for it. I didn't want my Rastafarian friend to have to huff and puff my fat ass back to the room where my friends were. I moved back in my wheelchair about three feet under my own power and then remembered that not only did I not know how to get back to where I came from but that we passed through a door he used a code to open, and like a considerate person waiting in line at the grocery store I didn't watch as he entered his pin.

When I got back Keely had left to call my parents and Shelly was sitting there alone. I told her everything that happened and when Keely came in I told it again. Shelly said the version she got was more comprehensive than the one I later told.

The Doctor came back in to tell us that nothing seemed to be wrong. No internal bleeding. That doesn't mean that it won't bleed just that's not bleeding now. I think I've been in management a tad too long because when anyone is CYA'ing I have an internal alert go off. I didn't bring it up but it was pretty thick. He also had a tad of over explaining why he wasn't going to give me narcotics for my own good, like that is what I had actually came for. I didn't have a problem with that because I wasn't in any pain.

I was in shock. At least I think it was shock, I was tweaked in a way that I can't really explain. I could think but I had nothing to think about. I could care but I really didn't have any feelings about anything. I remember wanting to go home and then feeling so comfortable that I didn't want to get up. I may never really know what normal is anymore. Such a subtle injury that only seems to have disrupted my interpretation of existence.


*A diesel engine needs to be plugged in during cold weather so the fuel does not freeze.

**Shelly is a phlebotomist. She works at Memorial and St. Joseph hospitals in South Bend.

***That's sarcasm, or maybe just a statement of our mild winter. This is Indiana, we used to enjoy (the hard core Hoosiers) a dusting of snow at Halloween and two plus feet by Christmas. It's what the Lord (born in the desert) demands for proper celebration of his birth.