08 February 2008

Hooray for Headwounds!

I get to work this morning and the first email I read is a message that I need to head down to the other building, our "warehouse annex" beneath the Hawthorne Bridge to help out my cow-orker who was having trouble getting the 1920's freight elevator to move. (Somehow, I seem to have the magic touch with this thing, not sure what my secret is, but I can always make it work.)
So after fighting the morning traffic down Sandy, I arrive at the warehouse just as he's managed to get it going. Sigh. Wasted trip. And there was only one pallet jack, so I couldn't even really help him move stuff around, so I just stuck around in case there were more elevator difficulties. As we're locking up the building, getting ready to head back to the shop, I'm wrestling with putting the dock plate away, (the dock plate is a 50 pound plate of steel that acts as a bridge between the truck and the building) I bend over to put it in it's place not noticing the other giant chunk of metal protruding from the wall right around head level.

It didn't really hurt too bad, that should have been my first clue that something was wrong, but after a little cursing and dancing around, I got my shit together and finished locking up. Before I left I grabbed a wad of toilet paper to dab my head just out of curiosity. Head wounds bleed a lot, in case you've never experienced one. I took one look at the tissue and nearly vomited.
After a few minutes, the bleeding was contained, but the nausea wasn't. As I'm driving back up Sandy, I almost pulled over three times to puke. Its the same reaction I have when I get blood work done. Losing just a little bit of blood always makes me feel like shit. I had the fan on full cold blast, windows down in the pouring rain, in hindsight, I really shouldn't have been driving. At least I was only in the Sube and not the big ol' truck...
When I got back to the shop, I spent a while sitting down, trying to compose myself, still holding various blood collecting devices to my head, convincing myself that it wasn't too bad. A couple of cow-orkers donned rubber gloves and pulled my currently unruly hair back enough to get a good look at it and managed to convince me that I should probably go get it looked at.
So I'm off to the urgent care clinic in Gateway, now with my shit together enough to drive safely, where after about 45 minutes of filling out 8 different forms, and reading a Portland Monthly cover to cover, I saw a cool doctor who gave me two choices, three shots and a staple in my head, or four layers of medical grade super glue that burn like a son of a bitch. He was reluctant about the glue due to the size of the gash and how much blood was still oozing out of it two hours after it happened, but gave it a try and so far it seems to be working. No blood tricking down my face. It really hurts to make any kind of facial expression that makes the skin on my head move, and my arm feels like I spent a six hour car trip playing slug bug, (from the Tetanus shot) but its Friday, and I got to spend the rest of my day at work not really doing anything and milking the sympathy of my cow-orkers. On the positive side, I was due for a tetanus booster...
Oh, and I found this bizarre sad little jewel scrawled in the waiting room copy of the Portland Monthly. It would be really depressing if she hadn't used the phrase "ass clown."

3 comments:

S p A c E said...

John,

So sorry for the head-wound. I hope you make a speedy recovery. Did you get to take some glue home to re-apply as needed? Just be careful, or you could wake up tomorrow morning with Mortimer stuck to your face.

h.Lo said...

OUCH! Hope you're feeling better. I've got two words for you: worker's comp. ;)

John D said...

You bet it was worker's comp. I filled out the paperwork while I was sitting in the waiting room. I would've had to pay 20 bucks for that tetanus shot if I went to my doctor!