All Jacked Up

So...this is just another story I feel like telling.  It has actually been requested by a few people.

A couple of weeks ago...on a Sunday afternoon/evening, I was doing a bunch of stuff around the house when my mom called  me out to the yard to help with something.  At the time I was working inside getting ready to paint, so I had my hands full, but I figured...what the heck.  So I go outside, and the next thing I know I am hooking up a trailer and filling it with piles of concrete blocks that she decided she needed moved.  Not exactly what I needed to get done, but oh well...I guess I am a sucker.

Anyway, we loaded two types of these blocks, ones that were somewhat shaped, but broken, and ones that didn't resemble any kind of shape, either broken really badly, or were just old concrete that someone had broken up by hand.  We were taking the shapely ones to the fire pit to build it up a little taller, and the misshaped ones to a pile behind some other rock on another piece of property.

After we are loaded, I drive over to the fire pit, pull up to it, and start looking backward at mom so she can tell me where to stop backing up.  We park, build up three rows on the fire pit, and then load everyone in the trailer (the kids wanted to ride to the other pile).  I get in the car, put it in gear and start driving.  About two feet after I start moving I hear a scrape.  "No problem" I think: "I am just dragging the trailer receiver on the ground as I come out of this ditch.  Then, out of nowhere a big cloud of dust is covering the trailer, my wife, my mom, and my kids.  "Hmmmm....why isn't the car moving any more".  I get out, and look under the car.  Sure enough, a big decorative boulder is lodged in front of the rear axle, right by the left shock.  Great...the grinding was the rock making its way to the rear axle...this can't be good...hey...how did that rock get there?  It is a long ways from the rest of the decorative rock line!  No matter...it is there and I need to get it out.

So...How do I get it out?  I just took the big flat jack out of the van and left it at the other house.  I know!  I have the HI-LIFT jack that I am borrowing from Brad.  I can't lift the wheel/axle, but I can probably lift the frame by the trailer receiver enough to get that rock out.

I go get the jack, and test it's functionality.  I lube it up really well with WD-40, and test it out.  It looks like it is mostly working, but the direction toggle isn't staying in the up position.  It is probably the fact that I need to have at least 100# on it for it to work correctly.  So I stick the jack under the receiver, and start cranking.  Sure enough the van is lifting...GREAT  I this should be easy!

I get the van up to the point where it might be enough, I let go of the handle, and everything looks good, so I start to turn away.  Right as the jack is out of my field of vision, it slips down a notch with a thud.  The next thing I know, I am punched in the face with the handle, and I no longer know which direction I am facing.  Next, I turn around and my mom and wife are yelling at me that they think I should be laying down.  OK...I'm not sure why, but what the heck...I feel like a nap anyway.  Then, mom comes over and starts putting her hands all over my face!  I say...what the heck are you doing?  Ummm....you are bleeding!!!

I found out later, my wife said it looked like blood was gushing out of the corner of my eye.  Luckily (and I mean I was really darn lucky) it wasn't.  It missed my eye by about 1/8th of an inch!

Well...I lay on the ground for about 30 to 45 minutes while my step dad goes to the store to find "Steri-Strips".  Unfortunately they don't have any, and the stuff they have doesn't hold worth a darn.  We ended up using gauze and Band-Aids anyway.  At least we had some time to keep pressure on it to slow the bleeding.

Now that we have it patched up, I sit up, and notice my 3-year old is sitting in the corner of the trailer, knees to her chest, and tears rolling down her face.  I realize at that point both of my daughters had seen the whole thing.  To make matters worse, we just took them to their first funeral the day before.  I can only imagine what was going on in their heads.  At that point...against my moms better judgement, I stand up and rush over to the trailer.  At the point I stood up, all was well again!  The 3 year old lights up, and the 5 year old runs inside "Daddy is standing...he's going to be OK!"  I help the 3 year old down from the trailer just to show her that I really am just fine, and we all start getting in the car...time to head to urgent care.

On the way to the urgent care, I try to call them.  Mind you this is difficult when your eye is swelling shut and you aren't the one driving, and you fell like Mike Tyson just punched you in the head.  Anyway, I make the call, and tell them to put me on the list (they have a call in program where you can call ahead and wait at home for the return call before coming in).  I told them not to bother calling as I was already on the way in, and I would rather just bleed in their waiting room than at home.  They took my info, and put me on the list.

As it turns out, there wasn't much of a wait and I got right in.  Apparently looking like I did in the picture above (taken in the waiting room) makes them move reasonably fast!

So now I go talk to the nurse.  One of the first things she asks is "Do you feel safe at home".  It was all I could do to answer honestly!  "Hey lady...look at my face and tell me what YOU think!"

Then I get to see the doctor.  She peals everything off ans starts poking around (more like playing with her own life if you ask me...that nonsense hurt!) and asking me if this hurts or this, or this.  At one point she stops and says: "You aren't going to like hearing this, but I think you need to go to the emergency room".  The only thing I could think of at this point was exactly what I said: "Well...I am going to have to pee first".  That was NOT what they were expecting and the entire room started laughing!  Then she continued and said that she was afraid my sinus cavity may be broken...it didn't feel like it, but we couldn't be sure without a CT scan.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to the ER we go (after a good pee of course)!

We show up at the ER, and they were basically expecting me because the urgent care called ahead...how nice of them!  We got right in with only a few minute wait.  They basically took me right back and started asking the same things again.  When they assigned me a room, the first thing I noticed was amazingly clean, white sheets that I was about to get as messy as possible.  Anyway...they wanted to start with a vision test.  I told them I could see just fine, but they wanted a baseline, so they took me to the "wall of letters" and said: "read the lowest line I can".  OK...A-X-C-D-V-B-blah blah blah (yea right...like I really remember what the letters were) all are on the last line.  Nurse dude looks at me and says: "that's the 20/10 line and you just read that with the busted eye?  Are you a fighter pilot or something?"

We go back to the room, and they have me keep ice on it for while waiting for the CT machine, which didn't take long.  We did the scan, and I had to wait for the results.  They wouldn't let me eat or drink until that was all interpreted, so by this time it's about 10:00 and I haven't had dinner or anything to drink after working hard since before sun down!  Oh well...it won't kill me.  They come back and say that everything is fine and nothing is broken.  Now I can say that yes, I have had my head examined, and they didn't find anything...or maybe I should wish they did find something...

Anyway, they come in and start shooting me up with drugs to numb everything.  Well...it sorta worked....after she pumped twice the amount of numbing agents in as she normally would without getting the desired affect, she asked a different doc to come in a confirm.  They decided to start, and got through two whole stitches before I started hollering: "Hey...I can feel that!"  She stopped, and the other guy pumped a different drug in me, and started the test probing...nope, can't feel a thing...EXCEPT WHEN YOU SOW THE STITCH!  Dude...I think it's not fully numb.  Well...I let them power through one or two before they get out of the sore spot, and can finish up.  We still don't know why that area never numbed, but oh well...it's done now.

Nine stitches later, with a couple of them redone (she was quite a perfectionist) I am all stitched up, and it looks great!  Nice and even and will heal very well.

Being 1:00AM, I decide to take the next day off.  Later that day I start seeing some very positive things from having these stitches.  We go eat and I get all kinds of weird looks.  Mostly just double-takes from women, and head nods from guys.  Also, I noticed the service was GREAT!  Hmmm...I may like having this look.  I did look pretty much like a bad-a$$!  Well...that lasted for a couple of days anyway before it started healing.

The next day I was back at work, and the stories started flying.  My favorite: "Don't mess with my wife!"  Others I heard that day were:
"Jeff [my boss] said never be late with another project"
"I was in a bar fight...and the bar won"
"Dude...no means no.  Haven't you learned that yet?"
"What did you do to piss her off?"
In a meeting...someone walked in and said: "I want you all to look at him and see what I do to the people who hold up my projects"

Anyway.  The scar is looking very good and clean at this point.  I am starting to get back into that "bad-a$$" look again.  I kinda like it, and why not, if I am going through all that work and pain, I might as well have a badge of honor to show for it!