Vehemently Vitriolic

Ah, the sites and smells of the hospital. Just got back from the emergency center at Eagle Ridge hospital for my massive wounds.

Well, okay, perhaps “massive” and “wound” is not really what the medical industry would call it. I was walking down my landlords steps to build a MAME machine in his basement, and, for whatever reason, they felt that the carpet on the stairs was causing some sort of serious barrier to people enjoying the runners and stringers in all their glory, so they removed it.

But left the tack strips.

Those tack strips with the zillion nails in them that hold the carpet down. Clearly the plan was to take visitors down like deer, and while they lay face down in a pool of blood and searching for their teeth could admire the handy work of the stairs before passing out.

As I walked down the very narrow stairs, I made sure my foot hit the back of the stair, and in doing so ran a tack for about half-an-inch down the back of my heel. It was like a paper cut; I didn’t even know it happened. Until my landlord pointed out I was being a rude guest and pumping blood onto their light-coloured carpets.

I went about building the MAME machine, then about an hour later figured out that I hadn’t had a tetanus shot in…..well since I was in elementary school when you get those innoculations. The days of which you know about, even if you forgot, as there are wails of murder most foul coming from the nurses office, and the lineup of hapless victims outside queuing up wonder if the needle is more like a rusty chainsaw. Soon they will get a prostate exam and re-live the entire ordeal.

Off I trundled to the hospital, after visiting webmd.com, which is like crack for the hypochondriac. Though, I do tend to prefer wikipedia.org for this as I like the down and dirty latin phrases which make even the most innocent things sound far more ominous.

For example, heres a search of “tetanus” from WebMD.com:

Tetanus is a disease caused by a bacterial infection. The bacteria make a toxin, or poison, that causes severe muscle spasms.

And here is the same search of “tetanus” from Wikipedia.org:

The primary symptoms are caused by tetanospasmin, a neurotoxin produced by the Gram-positive, obligate anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani. Infection generally occurs through wound contamination, and often involves a cut or deep puncture wound. As the infection progresses, muscle spasms in the jaw develop hence the common name, lockjaw

Whoa ho! “I totally want a peice of that! Damn, Gram-positive neurotoxin bacterium? That’s GOT to be bad. You know Gram must have been a smart guy, and for him to be POSITIVE I have this, well then I just must!” is how the conversation goes in my head. Take THAT WedMD and your glittery sanitized version of my affliction.

Once I get to somewhere with some sense of sanity (generally, my wife plays the part of Rational Brain. We were once installing tile at her parents place and she decided that part of her finger needed to come off right this second, so she hacked apart her index finger about an inch long and through the nail and had to sit down as blood literally spurted forth and even then we weren’t sure if it needed a tetanus shot.)  is when I know I’m not really a hypochondriac, just someone with moderately good internet skills and free time. Hypochondriacs thrive on “the hunt” and working to fool doctors and people far smarter that themselves into believing they have something. They walk proudly through hospital ER door, whereas the instant I got there, I wanted to turn around and go home. I mean, this was BARELY a knick. I could walk it off as my coaches had so often told me. Unfortunately, Eagle Ridge is run quite well and there was no line to see the triage nurse, so I was pretty much committed by then. I explained what happened and that I hadn’t had a tetanus shot for at least 15-years, maybe more. And added “its REALLY small” and “hardly any bleeding at all after the initial 10-minutes”, but she had already started writing on a piece of paper, so I had to wait now. Like the meter maids, once pen has touched paper at Eagle Ridge, you cannot wiggle out of it.

I asked what the ETA was and was told not long, even though there were maybe 10 or so people ahead of me, becuase “the section you’re going to” was different. Oh great, now I felt like a freak. I’m off to the “Stupid moron made-up disease and anal-retentive over-protective ward”, which was backed up about 10-minutes later by a couple coming in with their small child who had, and I quote “a cough”. The funny thing is, as I watched them I thought to myself “typical first time parents” and then glanced down at my small wound and would have bee-lined out of there had the doctor not walked in at that exact moment.

The placement of said wound is right on the back of the heel, in that spot you can’t get to now matter how hard you try. And I know this is why, but the doctor really did not help my ego by looking all over my foot EXCEPT where the cut was and saying “hm, must be really small. I can’t find it anywhere”. Dread. Finally he found it, and gave me that look like I’m sure he was taught at med school of “this is IT?”. Sensing this I told him my wife made me do it, and you know those chicks har har har, and I wanted to just walk it off nut OH NO, I HAD to go to get a tetanus shot, jockularity jockularity.

After the doctor backed away slowly, a nurse came in who was clearly given the rundown from the doctor. She peered over at me, told me to roll up my shirt and choose and arm as she walked to the fridge. She grabbed something out of the fridge, walked over to me, wiped my arm and stabbed me. Got a small cotton ball, dumped some isopropyl alcohol on it, sloshed my foot and stuck a band-aid on. How humiliating. While I was waiting for my surgery, I was hoping at LEAST to get some gauze. Somehow in my little brain, if I got gauze instead of a band-aid, then it WAS serious enough and I had made the right decision. But no. An off-the-shelf band-aid. Not even the Band Aid brand. A small piece of tan-coloured plastic (and BTW, who’s skin IS that colour anyway? Have you ever seen someone and said “Man, I had no idea you were wearing a tan-colored band-aid. It is totally camoflauged by your exact same skin pigment”)

As the nurse walked gruffly out of the room (which normally I would be pissed about, but I totally understand) I contemplated why I was there. And more importantly, where was the next closest hospital, because there was no way I could ever show my face in that one again. “Ah yes, you were in here before, let me just check your file. Uh huh. And now you have what? An amuptated arm cut off by a wheat thresher and the only thing holding it on is a single artery which is throbbing while pumping away the last essence of life. Riiiiiight. Okay, you can go over here in this section where its nice and cool and dark and the [airquote]doctor[/airquote] will be right in.”