For the first time in my life today I had an “accident” that actually required medical care. I almost cut my Achilles tendon. It was horrible. It happened so fast, I was picking up a chair, then all of a sudden I felt the burning pain and the warm blood run down my foot, soaking my sock. That particular sock, a fresh new white one, now looked as if it had been red all along. My shoe was caught under the ramp and I was sort of stuck, but trying to pull it out just made the blood pump out faster. Somebody finally lifted it up so I was free. Tears in my eyes, I hobbled to the bathroom. Followed by Jeannette with the first-aid kit, cursing how the ramp should not have been there in the first place and it was only a matter of time that someone got hurt. And of course it was me. (Things like that always happen to me. I don’t think I’m clumsy though, I just happen to have a bit of bad luck.)
I sit down on the step outside the bathroom, and I get a thick gauze padding put over my laceration, wrapped up to stay in place while I wait for medical care. Jeannette drives me to the Urgent Care Centre, fills out all the papers for me, asks if I’m okay, and tells me to call when I am done. I sit down in the waiting room, my stomach twisting and turning, growling at me. It’s lunchtime, but I don’t get to eat.
Please No Food Or Drink In The Waiting Room!
I sit there, observing the others around me. There’s an old man, waiting for some medication, a lady with a baby who has a cough, and two beautiful guys from Ireland. Thick accents, hard to understand, but they are incredibly interesting to listen to. An hour goes by, and they finally call my name. I hobble through the door and into the hallway and into the examination room I am pointed towards. The nurse sits with me and asks me some questions. I can barely understand her accent, I can’t figure out what it is though. She leaves the room and the doctor comes in, about 10 minutes later. He asks me to lay on the table, face down so he can see the wound better. He cleans it, it stings. He tells me that I might be lucky and not need stitches, but then he cleans it and notices I got cut through every single skin layer, and if it had gone any further I would have cut my Achilles tendon. I’m a lucky girl. So I definitely need stitches. I cringe at the thought but realize the pain of that would probably be less than having the cut open slightly every time I take a step. During all this, it is still bleeding. The doctor tries to keep it as clean as possible, injects me with the stuff that freezes you. That was probably the most painful part of the whole experience, I can feel it, every time he injects that needle directly into the wound. Stinging, a hot/cold sensation I can’t even describe unless you were to feel it yourself. Just, weird. Painful. After that, he sews me up. I could still kind of feel the needle going in and out, but not a painful way.
The best part of all of this is that my workplace is making me pay $20 to get a doctor’s note for why I won’t be at work tomorrow, and possibly a day or two after as well. I hope I get it back. I know I do get vacation pay for being off, though…so that’s good.
It hurts.
♥Taro
Leave a Reply