Where am I?

I was redirected to the ER at St. Michael's hospital. I had hoped they would have brought me to the Western. At least the staff knows me there, since Tresa worked there. But they weren't accepting any EMS patients. I was strapped to the board for a long time and it was getting uncomfortable. They kept saying ten minutes. My head was killing me. I asked, the police officer, if he could contact my wife and let her know where I was and that I was going to be okay. I looked a my watch and finally at 10:25am I was admitted. They put me on the bed, but I was still strapped to the board. The back of my body was aching and painful from being strapped to this board. I am not sure how long I was on that board, but it must have been over an hour.

They finally brought me in and moved me from the stretcher to the bed in E.R. But I was still strapped to the board. The EMS people could only strap me on; they weren't allowed to remove me. I tried to relax, but I was squirming, and then I just begged them to take me off this thing. They finally rolled me off, but I still had the neck brace on. Until they could verify that I didn't damage my neck, it was staying on.

My sister showed up. Tresa had called her to inform her what had happened. I didn't recognize her at first because my right contact had shifted somewhere in my eye. I couldn't rub my eye to fix it because I was covered with glass and blood. My hands were filthy so I just left it. I asked if they could clean me up. I know I did. I think I asked at least twice. But I was left covered in blood and shards of glass for 4 or 5 hours. They never did clean me up. Tresa ended up cleaning me up. After several hours of blood pooling into my eyes and ears, I asked her if they were going to clean me before they sew me up. They wheeled me in to get x-rays on my neck. I recall people's eyes burning into me, but I was in too much pain to care. Once they confirmed that my neck was okay, the brace came off. Thank God, because that was really uncomfortable too. The intern checked to see if there were any broken bones. She applied pressure on parts of my face. Nothing. She worked her way to my collarbone, surprisingly, nothing. Then she pressed on my ribs. OW! It wasn't broken; it was a piece of glass that she pressed into my torso. I had some lacerations on my mid section from the glass.

Tresa finally arrived and it was painful to see how worried I'd made her.

I was moved from my E.R. bed to the middle of the E.R. Someone else was coming in that required the monitor. Me, my sister, Tresa and Kieran were in the middle of the E.R. The intern had come back to check on the gash on my nose and she was about to take the bandage off. I was afraid of how it was going to be. I'm not one to go queasy at the sight of blood, but because this was my own flesh, it was grossing me out a bit and worrying me. I could see that it wasn't going to be pretty. I asked my sister if someone could call Pat, for advice on what we should do while we were here. He said to make sure I get an X-ray of my chest and a CT scan. I think that the adrenalin from the accident was slowly wearing off, because little by little aches and pains were starting to settle in. My back was getting stiff. I could feel bruising in my right hip and left knee. The eventually did an X-ray of my chest after I complained of soreness as I took a breath. And my lower ribs were painful to the touch. However they didn't do a CT scan. They didn't think I needed one. When they wheeled me in to the x-ray room the second time, my IV cord was caught and almost pulled out of my arm. I felt a tug and yelled 'whoa!'

At about 3:30pm Tresa asked a nurse if we could get some stuff to clean the blood and glass off me. She gave us a stack of gauze and peroxide. I could feel particles on my eyelids. I wasn't sure if it was dried blood or glass. I had a lot of little cuts all over - on my forehead, my cheeks, and my eyelids. I had dried blood on my hands and I just felt like I wanted to clean my face. It was about 4:00pm and I hadn't eaten anything since the evening before. I was starving and thirsty. No one had even offered me water to drink. But it was tough to get up I couldn't get up on my own power. And I didn't want to look in the mirror. I wasn't prepared for that. I was wondering why it was taking so long for them to sew me up. What was taking so long? The E.R. doctor was the one who was going to stitch me up, but then he had me do one thing. He had me hold my nose and blow. Blood and bubbles came out through the gash. That wasn't a good thing I thought. After that they paged the plastics doctor.

After they wheeled me to another area - a hallway, near the nursing monitoring station. This is where I'd be staying for the next 7 hours. I didn't see the plastics guy until about 5:30pm. I asked him what he thought. He was honest. He said that there'd be a scar. It was unavoidable. Listen to this. Because I was lying in the hallway, there wasn't a good light for him to do a prognosis. So he got a flashlight from the nursing station and I could see he needed three hands. So I held the flashlight and shined it down my nostrils so he could check it out. The only thing I asked was that he tells me what was going on. The silence was agonizing.

He eventually cleaned me up and sterilized the area. He sank a whole bunch of needles in my nose area to freeze the area. I caught a glimpse of the needle and I shut my eyes. It looked humongous. And I could tell my heart rate was climbing. As he was injecting the anesthetic, some of it went down my throat and I could feel that and blood dripping down into my eyes and ears. He cleaned it up but it burned my eye a bit. He covered the surrounding areas with some fabric, moved the skin into position as best he could and began to stitch. I couldn't feel the needle but I could feel the tugging. In a little over an hour he put in 30 stitches. 15 internal and 15 external. The last few stitches I could feel the prick of the needle as it went in. But I just wanted it over, so I clenched my fist.

After it was over he checked over the area and showed Tresa. It was now well past 7pm. He checked the bridge of my nose and I could hear cracking. He said it was broken. He asked if I had a CT scan done and I hadn't. So he ordered one. The nurse said I'd be waiting a while. I sent Tresa home, since Mel could take me later. I had the CT scan at after 9pm. The porter had come to take me upstairs and she was banging me around, hitting walls here and there. The hallways were crowded and narrow. It wasn't her fault. But I pulled me feet in to be on the safe side.

I was starving and all I had was water. I asked if I could have some food, but they weren't sure if I would require surgery. Until the results came back from the scan, I wasn't allowed to have food. The CT scan results were negative and he told me that I'd need to schedule a follow up for next Monday. I could finally go home. But I was feeling really weak, so I asked a nurse if they could give me some food. It took a while but I ate and got up from my bed and walked out of the hospital. It was weird to see it from this angle, when I'd been on my back the whole day.

I didn't care that I had to walk out to the parking garage, in my cycling shoes even. I was glad I was at least alive and not more badly injured. It could have been a lot worse. I considered myself lucky. Guess my mom was watching over me.