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!

There is apparently this show

in the U.K. called Over The Rainbow in which Sir (I think he's a sir) Andrew Llyod Weber and the whole of the United Kingdom picks an actress/singer to perform in ALW's new stage rendition of The Wizard of Oz.  The show consists mainly of, and I can say this with complete authority as I have watched no fewer than three whole youtube clips, a gaggle of sub-par but realistic women performing "mashups" of pop songs with weird introductions of classic show tunes, random shots of Graham Norton pretending to play instruments, and Sir Weber as he looks thoroughly disappointed and mouths things at nobody in particular and also looks like a cat.

The show also features the search for a dog to play the part of Toto.  On this the knighted composer had this to say:

A big sticking point for me, this was ... This is what the BBC wanted and I had to point out to them that as a cat man, this was not something that I was very happy about at all. The whole thing fills me with extreme concern. I might insist on having a cat on the programme, because I think the BBC as a public service broadcaster have got to give equal time in my view to cats.

He's my hero and this is my very favorite new thing ever.

A taste (also...um, Glee?):

Some Things A Lot of People Don't Know About Me

Check out Mags and Mrs. Brown for the same topic.

I'm going to do a little list because I can't think of one, overall, THING except maybe weird sexual practices and I feel like I'm not allowed to talk about those.

1. I am hot.  Like, really hot.  Seriously, you don't even know.  You should see me in knee socks and nothing else.  Actually, you shouldn't if you want to live past that moment because you'd melt and die from the sheer hotness.  I mean, Mr. Brown just took a picture of me and I wasn't ready, but I'm not concerned because it's going to come out fantastic because I am so hot.

2. I don't really like mac n cheese.  Just kidding!  I fucking LOVE mac n cheese.  The real number 2 is I am a goddamn laugh a minute.

3. I am terrified of everything.  I don't keep my fears a secret, but they're way more intense than even I make them out to be.  Sometimes I jump up when I'm in bed alone and go turn on the light because, in the light, the scary things can't get me.

4. I believe I am wholly responsible for Princess Diana's death.  This is the first time I've ever said this outside of my head.  Never even written it to myself.  I know, I'm a freak, but I totally believe this. So, here's the story:

I've had phases of being extremely superstitious.  When I was ten I was going through one of those phases.  When I was that age I was also dabbling in other kinds of beliefs and was really interested in witchcraft and sombre poetry and the like.  You know, regular kid stuff.  Anyway, I distinctly remember being in the living room, sitting on the couch, it being very quiet, and I was thinking.  Really hard.

And I wished myself dead.

I wasn't unhappy in the least, and immediately afterward I took it back.  I think I did it because I was interested in what happened after living and that junk.  So I quickly took it back because, obviously, it was going to come true because I'm just that powerful and there was some all-powerful entity just waiting to bow to the every whim of ten-year-old me.  And then, what feels like seconds later in my mind, but could have been days, I learned about Princess Diana dying.  So many people were so upset.  And then I realized that my wish was too powerful to just disintegrate, but it couldn't be used on me because of course, I had overruled it, so whatever force was going to grant my wish HAD to use it on someone, and that someone was her.

I killed the Princess of Wales.  Killed her dead.

And, to this day, I still believe that.  I still wish now that I had been quick and thoughtful enough to take back my wish-o-death and protect everyone, but I wasn't.  I was a dumb kid, playing with a power I couldn't fathom.  And for that, all of England had to suffer. And I've never told anybody except for you, internet.

So, number 4 is really I am totally, bat shit crazy.

Badass Of The Week

This is something I posted on a blog a while back and just felt like reposting today.


The following is an imitation in the style of badassoftheweek.com as that is a legitimate form of writing, I swear.

Colleen Faherty Brown

Those glasses are for your protection.

Interest in bicycling peaks annually some time in mid-summer when all of America tunes in to one of the twelve hundred ESPNs to catch a glimpse of a single-nutted American hero fly past all those beret-wearing, baguette-eating, complete-scrotum-having Frenchies in a blur of yellow and wheels, and they probably should because Lance Armstrong really is sweet like that. But what those couch potatoes watching him on television from the comfort of their sweet little suburban homes fail to realize is that Colleen Brown, who could end Lance Armstrong’s existence with a nonchalant, sideways glance, reducing him and his Trek Madone SL to mere skid marks that Alberto Contador wouldn’t even notice, is actually the most badass cyclist to ever set wheels to the motherfucking pavement.

Born in the Appalachian Ohio wilderness amongst man-eating mountain lions and equally-human-consuming bears, Colleen’s ability to kick wildlife ass and reach speeds exceeding eighty miles an hour were ingrained from the moment she popped out of the womb, which, by the way, she did all on her own. With a whopping seventeen brothers and nineteen sisters, the necessity for Colleen to fend for herself was, needless to say, intense; however, she managed to care for them all while still developing her own badassitude to the highest levels. She went on to mother two daughters of their own notable badassery, and grandmother a pirate. That’s right, I said a freaking pirate. The American government has even recognized her skills as she’s been employed by the state to kick the asses of jerk offs who are less than responsible caretakers of their elders. Also, she’s earned a black belt in tae kwon do. Three fucking times.

Thinking about who's getting the smackdown next.

But our story does not deal with the adolescence nor general sweetness of one Mrs. Colleen Brown despite how earth-shatteringly awesome the tales of her life are and how mindfucked you would be at hearing them. Oh no. The events that prove her to be the badass of the week took place on the balmy morning of Monday, August 9th, 2004.

Whilst riding along the quiet and often uninhabited bike trails of Nelsonville, Ohio with her husband and partner in badassery, David Brown, there occurred a moment that will live forever in badass history. You see, Colleen is not like the aforementioned sofa spuds who tune in and turn off when televised sports blow up. Colleen blows up. In the metaphorical, becoming active sense, of course, but she could literally not-so-spontaneously combust too, if she wanted, as she is a ninja and learned that skill during her tutelage under some white-bearded Korean martial arts master whose name I won’t repeat to you unless you actually want to be hunted down in your sleep and have your life stripped away three days after the fact from the kwon su ping which loosely translates to “palm fist of death by diarrhea.” And Colleen would take you all down with her if she chose to do so while blowing up, but she will allow you to go on living your measly little existence for now because she’s gracious like that. So, Colleen bikes. Not wussy, go for a ride every week or so bikes; Colleen hardcore, spandex shorts, thousand dollar bicycle, millions of miles every day bikes. And she doesn’t break a sweat. Or get tired. It’s just what she does.

On the aforementioned date, Colleen was minding her own business, riding down the trail and just generally being awesome when some motherfucking, batshit crazy, envy induced calygreyhound ran out of the brush and attacked her. That’s right, the mythical medieval beast you only heard of just now. Turns out it’s real, and you didn’t even know it fake existed, did you? Well, it does, real exist that is. The calygreyhound is one fucked up amalgamation of some of the craziest animals on earth with a wildcat’s head with throat-ripping fangs, a stag’s body for speed and antlers for bowel shredding, both eagle claws and ox hooves, and a lion’s tail just for good measure.

Artist rendition of the calygreyhound as this ass is too much of a puss to be caught on film.

This thing went fucking nuts on Colleen because, while most people don’t know anything about the calygreyhound, even less know that it has an insatiable thirst for awesomeness. Residing solely in the sparse forests of Oxford, England and feasting on the snaggletoothed crumpet-guzzlers the British Isles are forced to pass off as “awesome” but really only qualify as “sub-par okay,” this calygreyhound, later found to be named Pete, was drawn to Ameri-fucking-ca and the one and only Colleen Brown when it caught a whiff of awesomeness in its purest form.

Now, while bikes are wonderful modes of transport, when a thirteen hundred pound legendary monster powerhouses into the side of one going upwards of one hundred and fifty two miles an hour as Colleen usually does, it’s bad news. Colleen was thrown from what became a rolling mass of spikes and titanium into the pavement. Her hip was immediately shattered, shoulder separated, a joint was popped out of place in her spine, and she suffered the expected bumps and bruises that come along with assault by fabled beast. But that wasn’t stopping her. Colleen stood on her broken hip, thrust her shoulder back into its socket without even a grimace of pain and spat out a tooth like some cinematic action heroine. On crack. That calygreyhound messed with the wrong badass and it was time for some calygreyhound ball-crushing carnage.

In a flash, Colleen had ripped the now tangled spikes from her bicycle and fashioned a modern cyclist’s dream weapon of crazy pointy metal, delivering what can only be described as a cock-punch to the neck of the calygreyhound, slitting his throat open and showering the surrounding area in blood and bile. Pete didn’t even get a word in edgewise, not that “I’m lamer than a three-legged, blind kitten and a total douche bag to boot” would have subdued the skull-crushing rage Colleen mustered up at the sight of her destroyed two-wheeler. She was like a Tarantino version of Beowulf on acid or some shit, only sweeter because she’s a woman and has spiky hair. Innards were all over the trail and hanging from tree limbs SyFy Channel, overblown, B-list movie style, only it was real because, as everybody who knows knows, when the calygreyhound is decapitated, his insides spew from the newly made wound in a last, feeble attempt at revenge which Colleen stood against, a mangled mess herself, like it was a gentle spring shower and not a fucking torrent of legendary guts and gore.

Comforting this small child after choking out that croc with her bare hands.

David Brown stood there, amazed, knowing she didn’t need any help all along. He too suffered the shower of calygreyhound intestine and related juices but was mostly unharmed, the sheer greatness of Colleen’s dick-devastating action enough to bolster anyone’s spirits, even when covered in what is essentially monster corpse. He later made her the sweetest cookies that had ever been produced from any oven that you or I could ever imagine thanks to his comfort with his own masculinity and crazy ability to rock your fucking face off.

Now with two titanium rods in her back causing slightly limited mobility and occasional bouts of chills, the result and proof of her run in with Pete, Colleen lives and kicks asses in quiet, rural Ohio on the edge of the woods with her family, knowing she is all that stands between them and the carnivorous beasts of the wild. However, she’s not bothered, cautioning any creature that dares make its way up her porch steps with their own tailored version of a calygreyhound smack down be they wolf, gryphon, fire-breathing unicorn, or, the greatest predator of them all, raptor. You thought I was going to say “man” didn’t you? Well, no–raptor’s are fucking nuts and there’s no two ways about that. But just below them is certainly not “man”; that spot is reserved for Colleen Faherty Brown, total fucking badass.

I present to you

my childhood home:

Le sigh.

That's My Favorite Man, Hands Down

Did you know it’s almost Halloween?  That’s my favorite holiday, hands down.  But that also means it’s almost November which means it’s almost Harry Potter.  That’s my favorite series, hands down.  But that means it’s almost The Boyfriend's and my anniversary.  What?

Yeah!

The Boyfriend is so fun that it feels like we just started dating, but I’m so comfortable with him that it feels like we’ve always been together, so some kind of actual marker is just…weird.  With that in mind I guess it’s appropriate that neither of us know when we officially started dating.  There’s no date, just a time frame of late November/early December.

In light of a milestone for The Boyfriend and me, I put together two tiny, true-to-life comics.  I know three would have rounded it out and made more sense, but I am a busy woman, okay?  I mean, it is Wedding Sunday on WE.  Jeez.

How I See Things v How The Boyfriend Sees Things