Warning: I'm Naked In This One!

Well, I'm finally selling out to try and get internet famous; I'm posting nude photos.

Well, drawings.

I've been working on this post for a while, but you're going to look at the following pictures and think I not only lost my ability to walk, but to draw too.  Well, listen here, Internets, it takes an awful lot of effort to get to the scanner.  I had to scoot all the way across this queen size bed and suffer a super wedgie (front and back) to do it, so deal.  Then I was so tired after I uploaded these, that I only turned up the midtones, so they look rather awful, but it's the gist I needed to get across to you.

So, you should know by now that I can't deal with being gross.  These means I will risk certain death to get clean.  Or at least risk genuinely breaking my pelvis to do so.  The other day The Boyfriend was sleeping as is usual because he works at night and I was feeling particularly grimy.  Me experience showering has been, since I've been broken, lackluster.  The Boyfriend helps me in, I sit in a plastic lawn chair and scrub, shave the parts of my legs I can reach (if I'm not exhausted at that point) and then he helps me back out much to my hip's dismay at being moved in such a weird way.  After two weeks of waiting for him to get up before getting my uber-Italian oil off, I thought "Hey, I should be handicapable enough to do this on my own now!"  The short story is: I am.  The long story is, well, this:

I got in without a hitch pretty much.  My heart raced at the thought of slipping and impaling myself on the faucet, but that didn't happen, just like I knew it wouldn't.  I was very happy to get clean:

After washing up and drying off a little I celebrated: "Fuck yeah."

So then it was time to get out, so I grabbed onto the faucet thingy and tried to stand:

Much to my dismay, The Boyfriend was not right there to grab on to:

A new route would have to be found.  Maybe I could lunge forward?

Nope.  So I figured I could swing my leg over the edge, straddle the tub, then swing the other leg over and stand up on the floor in reach of my crutches.

The caption for the previous picture is "OH MY FUCK!"  When I realized that my muscles were still too full of blood (an "internal scab" which is the grossest thing I've ever heard) to work properly, I knew I wasn't going to be lifting my leg out.  But there was another option:

I could sit on the edge of the tub (slipperier and narrower than one would expect) and then shift myself over to the toilet and stand up from there.  I reached:

But did not have the length or upper body strength necessary to do so.  There was only a single other option, and that was not to call The Boyfriend.  I was an independent woman.  I would do this on my own:

And I fucking did:

Hell to the yeah:

With the utmost expertize, I lowered myself flat onto the bathroom floor, legs in the air and propped up on the tub.  I was a fucking miracle worker.  The only thing left was to shimmy backward into the wall and slide my leg down.

After a few choice words I was free at last, free at last!

And that's how I got out of the bathtub on my own that one time without shattering my pelvis or impaling myself on the faucet.

Helen Keller, eat your heart out.

And from there, Robot Unicorn came and flew me off to heaven:

THE END.

There is an unexplained beeping coming from somewhere

and I can't even find the fucking thing because, of yeah, I can't fucking walk. I can't go Christmas shopping. I can't go see my best friend graduate. One of these cats is driving me fucking insane because he can now get on the kitchen counter because our kitchen table was moved too close to the counter and I can't move it away because, of yeah, I CAN'T FUCKING WALK! Also, I can't stop the cat because I can't go knock him off. I have a squirt bottle, but that does little good when he hides behind the fridge. He also gets up on the dresser and scratches at the plastic on our fucking shitty windows and lets the cold in while I'm trying to sleep and I have to spray him to stop again and wake up very three fucking seconds and then I have to get out of bed and shut the door which takes like twenty minutes and I have to get Bart out of the room too who hasn't done a single thing wrong because he's just fat and stupid, but not bad, but he doesn't move when I tell him to so I have to yell at him and smack him with a shirt and I feel horrible but I'm just so goddamned tired and I hurt so fucking much that I can't sleep anyway and I'm alone at night all the time because The Boyfriend has to work so much and I'm awake all by myself during the day and I CAN'T FUCKING WALK so I can barely cook anything to eat and I've been constipated for the last two weeks and finally took a laxative and shit my guts out all day today, over five times today, and I got my period because I had to stop taking my birth control and of course it's like two weeks early so it's going to last now for two weeks and now I'm going to have menstrual cramps on top of everything else which is great timing because I have like 3 painkillers left and I'm off the birth control because of this stupid blood thinner that I have to inject in my stomach every fucking day and it hurts so much it's almost worse than my hip and I can't even laugh because it feels like my insides are trying to explode out of me when I do, so nothing can be funny and sometimes I sneeze on accident and sneezing is the worst thing ever, except it's not worse than just feeling like a useless piece of shit who can't even shower herself which I couldn't do today because The Boyfriend got called into work early and of course it's the day that I shit 5 times and got my period and my vagina is all mucus-y and I am just angry all the time and feel like poop and want to pass out after washing three dishes and don't think I'm ever going to get better.

And ya know what? I'm sick of people telling me I'm lucky. I FUCKING KNOW. I SAW THE GODDAMNED SUV SLAM INTO ME!!!

Also, THIS WASN'T MY FAULT. FUCK THE POLICE!!! SERIOUS-FUCKING-LY! They fucking charged me because I was the easy one to pin it on, because they knew very fucking well I would be too hurt and too inexperienced to go to court.

Sigh...

And if any of you don't agree you can go fuck yourselves because if I can't rant on my blog then where the hell else am I supposed to do it?

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I cried today for the first time since this happened.

Today was just a bad day.

Thanks for sticking around til the end. This won't happen again.

Promise.

Part II: Trauma!

You think it’s going to be horrifying to have your vagina flopped out in front of a room full of strangers. Truth is, you’re not even going to realize it until you’re having a conversation about your improperly inserted catheter with a nurse an hour later.

I had on a neck brace and was on a backboard so I had little sense of setting when I was wheeled into the hospital, but I did know that the people designing the hospital knew that the ceilings had to be interesting because this was the view a lot of people were going to have. There were like blown up children’s paintings up there. It got my mind off things for a few seconds.

I was wheeled into this large room with a million people in it. The EMT had prepped me for this—he said they were taking me straight to trauma and there’d be an onslaught of people to attack me. I like that he built it up so much because, like with a lot of movies, it didn’t live up to the expectations he’d set so I can look back and say, “eh, not so bad.”

But the questions certainly did come from everywhere. They asked my name and date of birth and then this glorious thing happened: people started getting my name right! And they used it a lot. I believe in what Dale Carnegie says—everyone’s favorite word is their own name. I got asked for a contact number for someone. I spat out Mom’s name and her home phone number—literally the only number that I actually know. I got really upset because I didn’t know if she had The Boyfriend’s number. I started conjuring up ways to contact him at work and the different avenues we’d have to go through at the University to get to him. I immediately decided no one was good enough at Google except for me to contact him. All was lost.

Then I realized they were cutting off my clothes. I only knew that was what was going on because the EMT told me that would happen. They were either so marvelous at it that I didn’t notice (creepy) or I was in so much pain that I didn’t notice. Oh, did I tell you I was in pain?

This was probably where it hurt the most because they kept rolling me and moving me. They warned me before hand that they’d have to roll me and it was going to hurt and when they did I distinctly remember going, “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit” and then promptly apologized. Someone told me, sincerely, “Well, you handled that significantly better than most people.”

They cut off my shirt—again, very impressively—and asked if I wanted to keep it because, guess what, it was my Lil Abner shirt with the signatures of the cast and crew on it. The musical that I had the female lead in! Cut up! Arg! The question of keeping it was weird to me, like it didn’t matter because I just didn’t want to be dying, so I was like “Whatever…it’s okay, you can throw it out,” but mostly I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. NAKED GIRL ON TABLE WITH FRACTURED PELVIS DIDN’T WANT TO INCONVENIENCE ANYONE. Story of my goddamned life.

After they got my pants off a woman with a glove leaned over me from my feet and said, “I’m really sorry honey, but I have to make sure you’re not bleeding internally, so I’m going to have to insert my finger in your bottom.” What a nice way to say you’re going to STICK YOUR HAND UP MY BUTT!!! But honestly, it wasn’t the worst thing ever. In fact, I barely felt it.

What I did feel was the four sets of hands prodding at and peeling back my vagina to get the catheter in. When the woman told me they were going to have to do that I must have looked utterly distraught because she apologized profusely. In my mind, tube in urethra = most intense pain ever. I said, “I promise I’ll just get up and walk to the bathroom! I promise!” She told me I wouldn’t be walking for a long while. Ugh. I gave in. Then they shoved it in. Again, not terrible, just uncomfortable. I imagine I didn’t feel the full pain of a lot of this because my hip was excruciating. Someone said it was wrong so they took it out and redid it. Someone else said it was wrong so they took it out and redid it again. I was thinking someone better Google “pee-hole” before they do that a fourth time because I love my vagina the way it is and never intended on piercing it. Meanwhile a separate group of people were at each of my arms sticking me and taking vitals and asking me questions, but none of it mattered when so many people were prodding my lady place.

Finally, they were like, “That’s gotta be it, right guys? I mean, we can’t miss that many times! Harhar!” And someone was like, “There’s no urine in the bag!” And someone else was all, “Flush it!” So they ran some fluid into what was supposed to be my bladder and after the thing that was supposed to happen didn’t happen, they were like, “Guess you just don’t have to pee!”

Great.

So I went and got a cat scan. I think. It could have been an MRI. All I really know is that the machine looked expensive and instead of the tech giving me directions on when to breathe, the machine did, so I’m positive it was expensive. Again, I contemplated asking to forgo it, but knew that would get me nowhere.

I ended up in another room, a quiet room, a room where only two other people at the most would be with me. It was nice. There was a curtain separating me from commotion. I really enjoyed this—for like two minutes. Then I could feel all the pain and discomfort. Blah. Some nurses came in.

Sidebar: The nurses I encountered at Grant Medical Center were some of the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure of coming in contact with. I feel so blessed to have been in a place with RNs, LPNs, and like all the other nurse-type titles that were that incredibly sweet. They wanted nothing more than to make me comfortable and smile at me. It was amazing.

Sidebar II: It was really nice to see some near-equality in the male to female ration of nurses, at least in my limited experience there. I saw probably 30-40% male nurses to the women that took care of me and that was cool.

The male nurse who started taking care of me made me feel really calm. Asked me about who was coming for me. He went to make sure someone was. Then a doctor came in.

OK, so I work for a doctor. I know they are not all sucky, but my experience with them totally was at the hospital. This guy was actually an orthopedic surgeon who had looked at the x-rays. He explained that it looked like I had fractured my pelvis and what went along with that. He was pretty cold, but how can you not be when throwing around medical terms? It’s a good thing I’m a fucking genius because otherwise I would have been confused.

I listened to him intently, I didn’t really ask for clarification, I was good the whole damn time he talked. Then he asks, “Is there anything at all I can do for you to make you more comfortable, Ashley?”

And my mind lights up, “I have this really intense urge to pee, but I can’t really go. I think this catheter may be wrong.”

His response, “Catheters make you feel like you have to pee,” and totally dismisses me and goes.

I was really angry because I knew something was not right but now I was totally alone. Every time someone passed by I hoped they’d come in, but it seemed to go on forever that I was alone. I had to pee so badly and I was still shivering so much that I thought all that was actually causing my hip pain. Finally the male nurse comes back and asks if he can get me something—I practically cut him off, “I have to pee something fierce!”

And a female nurse is walking by or had come in with him or he got her, I’m not sure as the urine was reaching my eyeballs at this point, and she checks it out. “Honey,” she asks, “Did a man put this in?”

“Uh, there were like twenty people, so I don’t really know. They did it three time”

Only a slight bit of hyperbole there.

She takes it, slips it in again, INSTANT FUCKING RELIEF!!! It was peeing without peeing. It was an empty bladder without movement. It was the best I ever felt. I almost cried thanking her.

Now the only question is this: What the hell did they actually flush out???

Coming up next: Part III: Visitors!

Guess Where I Was! or Part I: The Accident

OK, if you’re reading this, you probably already know, but I was in the hospital! I could probably write several blogs with very different feelings to them: the sentimental, thank God I’m alive blog, the funny, everyone at the hospital is so invasive blog, the I can’t believe healthcare is so expensive blog, but instead I’m just going to shove it all into one. And try for the invasive one the most because I’ll get to say vagina a whole lot in that one.

Friday I was headed to Pataskala from Columbus to meet Minigan, a good writer, better friend and the best at being extremely hyperactive, to have a writing meeting. We hadn’t met in weeks, and were supposed to the Monday before, but The Boyfriend got really sick and I had to take care of him instead. So, if you think about it, this whole thing is totally their fault.

Anyway, I was on 71 and had already passed an accident, but once I got to 70 (a major highway just after rush hour) I felt free and clear. To not be an asshole, I switched over to the left, “fast” lane so that the people coming on from and getting off on the really closely spaced onramps would have the least amount of people driving in front of them. I am too nice for my own good. Then the cars in front of me, way in front of me, put on their brake lights. So I tapped mine too. Then I realized they were still stopping. Like, a lot. And hard. So I had to match it. It looked like I was going to ram the car in front of me, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, my car with its week-old, new brake job (oh yeah, I just put over $500 into my car, mainly for brakes so this exact thing wouldn’t happen), pulled to the left and spun me sideways. I remember actually thinking, “Oh, this is bad,” as it happened. That, I think, is one of the weirdest things. How, you know something bad is happening, at least in my experience, and you know you have little to no control, but instead of freaking out, you are completely calm and just take it. Because that’s what I did. I was just sitting there, seeing the road before me disappear and be replaced with the meridian, and thinking, “Oh, dear, this is a bit of a pickle.” I hoped that I would end up driving off into the meridian and stop in the grass. That didn’t happen.

Instead, whoever was behind me slammed into the driver’s side door. That was a shitty turn of events.

I had barely been going 60 and had been stopping, so I was going slower. Now, I admit, my car was old and little and poopy, but it didn’t hit the car in front of it. So what the fuck was the guy behind me doing that made him hit me? Texting, I bet.

There was a split second, though, when I spun around and was still moving forward on the highway, but very slowly. I would have come to a stop. It would have been okay. But in that nugget of a moment that I was still in mid-turn I caught a glimpse of the driver’s side mirror and what was behind me. Then, sideways, I happened to see basically a grate and some headlights pretty much next to me. And in that second I knew it was going to hit me. And again, totally calm, I just thought, “Darn.” Why doesn’t my mind swear and go crazy when actual horrific shit is about to happen?

So then it hit me. Literally. I was conscious through this whole thing, but this was the split second that it got fuzzy. I couldn’t accept what was going on, and I just had to go, get out of the car. I’ve had a lot of nightmares about car accidents, so I thought maybe I was in one of those. Maybe this wasn’t happening and I’d just wake up next to The Boyfriend in a cold sweat and everything would be fine.

After I fumbled with the seatbelt and whimpered because I couldn’t see (I’d find out later that my glasses came flying off and ended up in the middle of the highway which, by the way, I HAVE ON RIGHT NOW! That’s pretty cool, ya gotta admit) I went to open the already open (because it was crushed) door and step out. My brain, always cool and collected, said, “Okay, so that just happened. Now, you’ve seen a lot of crime dramas—you know what happens next. This is when the car explodes, so you need to get away from it.” So I tried. I took a step out to go. But how the hell was I supposed to know my legs didn’t work?

I ended up on the ground, wedged in the crook of the door, facing the back of the car. Without the open door, I would have been flat on the ground. Then there was this woman. Actually, no I think she was like an angel. Really. Because she was the first person there and she kept calling me “sweetie” and she was so nice and every time I think about her I cry. I told her we had to move because cars were going to come and hit us. She told me the cars all stopped. She got me a blanket. She held my hand.

And that’s when I knew I was going to die.

Never in my life have I thought I was going to die. I consider it my intense egotism, but I just don’t think God will let me die this young and with so much left to do. I don’t do crazy things because I have that nonsense knowledge, but it’s really just never seemed that realistic to me. I know people die and that someday I will, but not me NOW. Except then, on the pavement, with strangers around me and my car in a mass of metal, I knew I was going to die. There was no other option. Not because it even hurt, I just thought, “This is it.”

Then a random man who happened to be an EMT came and assessed me. He got my info, he made me feel a little safer. On the other hand, though, about three other people, old white men btw, were walking around, shaking their heads, going “Oh my God, I can’t believe this” and freaking me right the fuck out. They asked me if I could move. No, 60 year old man, I cannot, and please don’t try to move me because you’ll probably kill me. DON’T YOU WATCH TV? DON’T MOVE THE VICITM!

But that woman was there and talking to me and that was okay.

Then the actual paramedics came. And guess what. No one got my name right. Ever. Not once. It is a good damn thing I was conscious and could repeat “ASH-LEEEEEEEY!” to them over and over when they kept questioning, “Melanie? Veronica? Pete?”

They took off the blanket the nice woman gave me, they took off my coat. They took off my sweater. They made me lay flat and my hip was so mad that I am pretty sure I swore because my actual voice is nowhere near as calm as my inner voice. I started shaking so badly from the cold and pain I thought I was going to snap everything I owned and passed out. I repeated “Ashley” a couple more times in case they forgot again and hypothermia had taken me.

I had on a neck brace, I was on a backboard, and they were getting ready to put me in the ambulance. This is the part where I thought, “Maybe I’m not going to die” and then the other rational part of me kicked in and my brain exploded into, “God, no DON’T PUT ME IN THE FUCKING AMBULANCE!!! IT’S TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t that nice lady drive me? Or how bout I take myself? Seriously, guys, I don’t have $1,000 for a cab ride!” Then, on top of that, they decided to take me to Grant which was a billion miles further away than Licking Memorial, so then I was like “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” because they charge you mileage in those things.

And then my mind calmed down and the guy in the back of the ambulance with me was like, “What was your name again? Angie?”

Close enough.

P.S. Oxygen is effing terrible. Breathing on my own is something I prefer much more.

Coming up next: Part II: Trauma!