1600 Lipan

Between 6:33 and 6:41 on the morning of January 12th, I was walking my kids to their bus stop.  The portable basketball hoop at 1600 Lipan was blown over by violent winds and gashed me in the head.  I was admitted to Ascension Dell Seton Medical Center at 7:18 and was discharged at 9:29 with 12 stitches for "blunt head trauma" and "facial laceration."

Aaron Snyder, a lawyer, owns 1600 Lipan.  Between 12:00 and 12:10 the next day, he came to my front door to tell me that this could have happened on anyone's property.  He described himself as a "friendly neighbor" who was "reaching out" to "make sure I was okay."  The basketball hoop is still standing as I write this post on the evening of the 13th.  It is still on the road we walk and drive on, being weighted down in the back with a few rocks.

Shit.

12 Jan 24, 6:44

Worse.

12 Jan 24, 6:48

All Cleaned Up and Oh So Pretty

12 Jan 24, 8:25

Thrilled to be Stitched

12 Jan 24, 9:20

Changing the Dressing

12 Jan 24, 20:57

The 12th of January wasn't about fear, anger, or pain for me.

It was about shock and not knowing.

The shock to my body from the pole hitting my head resulted in so much adrenaline that there was no pain.  It's very dark before 7 in January, and when I reached up and felt the blood dripping, I didn't know how bad it was.  I didn't know if my skull was cracked, I didn't know if my brain was bashed, and I didn't know if I was dying.  I didn't know if I was about to lose consciousness.  I didn't know if my children would come home to their mother.  I called my dad to tell him to pick me up, and didn't know if he'd have to find me dead on the street.  When the kids heard the call, they wanted to use my phone as a flashlight to see my face.  I wouldn't let them.  The bus rolled up and the headlights flashed on what must have been one of the most traumatic visions my children will ever see.  And I didn't even know what it was.  They were screaming and crying as they got onto the bus.  I told them that I loved them very, very, very much.

I would later hear that they each sat in their assigned seats and cried the entire way to school.  And of course that's what happened.  But it was still so sad to hear about it.

Dad picked me up from the bus stop.  Slowly, because he had to move the damned basketball post out of the way.  I got home, snapped a photo, and started cleaning the wound.  That's when I saw that the gash in my head wasn't what I had thought - the deep horizontal cut wasn't creating a vertical line of dripping blood - the vertical line was an extension of the gash.  It went all the way down into my eyebrow.  I told my dad we needed to get to the ER.  You know your country's healthcare system is winning when you go to an ER that is 9 miles away because that's the one that takes your insurance.  After about 25 minutes of waiting through traffic lights and 5 minutes of wandering through the medical center with blood all over my face, hands, and clothes, I was admitted.

George arrived moments later.  He quickly addressed my injury as a "full thickness" wound, which means it goes all the way to my skull.  The doctors told me that this likely tore through my eyebrow muscles.  Wonder of wonders, my eyebrows could still move.

The nurses dressed my wound, took my vitals, gave me a tetanus shot, cleaned my wound with warm saline, applied lidocaine gel, and made sure I was comfortable.  My main physician, Mackenzie Thompson, suggested a CT scan, injected lidocaine, and stitched me up rather nicely.  She was everything you could want in a doctor - knowledgeable, calm, honest, and kind.  Because I was so functional, and we'd rather not expose my brain to all the radiation a CT scan requires, we asked if it was necessary.  They were happy to cancel it.

I was told to expect nausea, headaches, dizziness, lack of focus, and strange sleeping patterns.  Tylenol, Ibuprofen.  I was discharged with information on how to care for the wound, when to have George remove the stitches, and a reference to "plastics."

We went straight from the ER to Valley View Elementary and arrived at 9:52.  It was time to take our traumatized children home to hold their mother who was still very much alive.  We waited 8 minutes for the school to collect their attendance numbers, made it back to 1900, and settled in upstairs for movies.  Dad cooked a few rounds of steak to help me build blood.  Drakeson made sure I ate it.  George went back to work.  Milli and Drakeson nestled in, one on each side, holding me tightly.  I thought for sure I would fall asleep - the doctors had told me to get plenty of rest - but I was a little bit scared.  When bedtime rolled around, I realized that my body still felt like it was in fight-or-flight.

Today I feel less weak.  I'm less shocked and more grateful to be alive.  I'm so happy that my son Drakeson won't turn 11 on Friday as a motherless child.  I'll be wearing a silicone patch on my head starting in a few weeks and ending maybe a year from now.  I'll have a huge scar on my face for the rest of my life.  But Aaron Snyder wants to make sure I'm okay.  And make sure I know that it could have happened on anyone's property.  And he had to come to my front door to personally deliver this news.