the story from the top

 as it was told to me, from several sources.....

during lunch on tuesday, 27 april in the year of our lord 2010, ms. mileidy and her friends (who shall remain nameless), were sitting on their lunchboxes, engaging in silly talk. apparently, one of such nameless friends yanked mileidy's lunchbox out from under her, causing her to topple backwards off the bench and split her head open on the radiator. another nameless classmate walked mileidy to the nurse, bleeding profusely from the head. (i was concerned to hear that an adult did not accompany them, since at any moment my child could have fainted, resulting in further injury...but...) she was cleaned up, bandaged, and the cafeteria lady brought a tiny stuffed bunny to the nurse's office while they waited for me. older brother seamus stuck his head in the doorway as he passed and uttered the encouragement of: "don't die." ah, the love.

at precisely the same moment, i was walking through a cellular void in the airport from my checkpoint through the underground tunnel and parking garage to my car. when i got the message, i frantically drove 25 miles to the school and took the leidybug to the emergency room. after following a series of confusing directions from my garmin, and ultimately finding the blue emergency hospital signs, we arrived on the GBMC medical campus. now i understood why the garmin was confused.

as far as "ease to get there" is concerned, GBMC fails utterly in my book. not only do they get an F, but a triple F for eFFing Failure. i spent 15 minutes looking for a place to park, because the 10 spaces marked "emergency patients only" were taken. yup. all 10. parking, parking everywhere, as long as you want to walk at least 1/4 mile to get to the door. carrying an injured child. bleeding from the head. what if it had been a compound fracture of the leg??? no wheelchairs available at the elevators, nothing. aside from the parking fiasco, GBMC was awesome.

we were in and out of the emergency department, from front desk to discharge in under 90 minutes. they did a great job of hiding exactly what was going on, without scaring my daughter. miliedy was immensely impressed with the twinkling stars on the ceiling above the nurse's station. first, nurse kristin removed the sarajevo war victim head dressing prom do and swabbed leidy's head down with some iodine solution, making her bloody head look a sight more gruesome. next, she gave mileidy a numbing gel and an ice pack for 10 minutes. then the doc came in and stabbed my child in the head multiple times with a syringe the size of a honda fit to numb her up quite a bit more. fortunately leidy had no idea that there was a needle involved... that could have gotten Fugly. lastly, a package arrived looking oddly like a cross between a cordless glue gun and a star trek phaser, with a fully loaded complement of staples. doc trimmed a few hairs from around the wound, told mileidy to brace herself for a little pressure and stapled away.

and my babycakes did not cry. not a tear. she squeezed her new bunny (named stitch, by the way) when it hurt, just like the school nurse taught her. after staple number four, she un-squinched her eyes, and said, "whew. glad that's done. it was starting to hurt a lot."

i watched some guy staple my kid's head. *gulp*

it took a lot for my mommy instincts to not take over and rip the gun from his hand and staple his nuts to his chin. my hands were thrust into my pockets, balled into fists, repeating "it's a good thing, it's OK, he's a helpy-guy..." inside my head.

it was harder to keep her wiggly little butt seated during the paperwork part than it was for her to get her head put back together. she walked herself back to the car, but was pale, shaky and light-headed by the time we got there. (stoooopit parking garage.) and then i was like, "um, i don't have any cash to pay for parking." there wasn't exactly an ATM available either. i don't feel upset at all about the parking lot losing my $4 in revenue. i mean, who checks their pocket or stops at the bank on the way to the ER anyway??

The Bravest Princess In The Land requested papa john's for dinner, so papa john's she got. she relaxed at home for the night, and was sad to hear she would miss her turn on the school's wednesday morning announcements. so i told her she could go for the first 5 minutes of school. as much blood that gushed from her head, i'm sure a bunch of kids were scared, so i thought it would be good for them to see that she was not dead. we woke her up twice in the night to make sure all was well, and to deliver tylenol. she was cheerful, if pale, this morning , and extremely proud of her brevity. and her cyborg-stapled head. which brings us to lunch time on wednesday, where TBPITL is watching barbie movies, learning how to use the intercom feature on the telephone to fetch mommy, and is headed to nap land shortly.

TBPITL thanks everyone for their well wishes, and wil be returning to school thursday, minus gym and recess for the remainder of the week. she is scheduled to get her staples removed next wednesday.

ring, little phone, RING!

 details, details. oh, find the devil in these, baby.

on march 10th, i fell down half a flight of carpeted stairs in our house. i missed the first step down and caught air, landing on two steps flat on my back, slightly to the left of my spine. the small box of frozen foods i was carrying to the freezer landed on my chest. we debated about whether to call an ambulance and decided that since i *could* get up, insurance would prolly not cover the ride. i changed out of jeans into fresh pajamas and off to the emergency room we went.

they took x-rays of my lower spine, where the pain was most severe and they came out clear. i was given percocet, an Rx for hydrocodone, told to see my doc and sent home.

monday, march 15th, my doc put me on 2 weeks no duty, gave me an Rx for an anti-inflammatory, a muscle relaxer to help me sleep and said REST FOR REAL.

all went swimmingly. i took my meds less and less. i followed-up with my doc on monday, 29 march, who said, if you're not in pain, then stop taking the anti-inflammatory and see what happens. she asked me to do a few things to show her my range of motion, which was great. i told her i'd been lifting full laundry baskets occasionally over the past couple of days to test my strength. no pain. she said if i had any further troubles, i'd likely have to go to PT. i was released to full duty.

wednesday we walked & biked down in DC for a few hours. i was sore, but not overly so. i rested all day thursday. 3am friday i woke up in pain. PAIN pain. i can't recall exactly, but i might have woken up in a sneezing fit; that is not an uncommon occurrence in spring. i got up and got the heating pack for the pain. i rested again all day friday.

i went back to work on saturday, 3 april. i was tired and a little sore after the first day, so i decided to take the anti-inflammatory again. sunday was a bit worse. monday after work, it hurt to breathe. tuesday morning i took aleve in addition to the anti-inflammatory. i took my oxycodone and a muscle relaxer at bedtime and hoped i'd wake up on time for work on wednesday.

wednesday i just gritted my teeth and made it through the day. it felt like a knife wound in my chest with every breath. which is odd, because the initial injury was in my lower back. i went home and slept poorly, not hungry, and after dinner, looked up chiro in my insurance plan. once i found what i needed, i drugged up for pain and tried to sleep again.

thursday i went to my initial chiro appointment. they ordered another set of x-rays to get a picture of my upper back that had not been x-rayed in the ER. i was informed that there are several possibilities to justify the pain in my chest. 1) the pain in the injury to my lower back was so severe, it blocked the lesser pain of the upper back at that time. 2-a) the anti-inflammatory medicines took care of the upper injury altogether and i didn't notice any problems until after i stopped taking the anti-inflammatory and went back to work and/or 2-b) re-injured that area at work. that second part is unknown, since i can't pinpoint exactly what set it off. 3) the new x-ray showed a slight possibility of a compression fracture of one of the vertebra - the one that had a rib connected to the pain in my chest. apparently the rib bones can "resonate" pain from an injury all the way through the bone. i was also informed that not all fractures show up in the initial x-rays. doc asked me to wait until the radiologist confirmed that diagnosis before treating the ribs.

friday, radiology hadn't read my pictures yet, but doc said he would call me in the afternoon if there was indeed a fracture. i was told to go ahead and work the weekend because he wanted to see me again on monday after three days of light duty - to see if adjustments to my duties needed to be made and judge how well i was holding up. i was given a back support to wear at work and the doc filled out a light duty request for work. no lifting over 5 pounds. paperwork was faxed to work for duty restrictions. since i have to show up live and in person to receive a light duty accommodation, i drove my little self to HR... who promptly said "we don't know why this other guy says you can only do certain things, but the first provider says you're fine."

wouldn't that be the difference between a general practitioner and a specialist? hm.

three weeks of ass-sittage right into 5 days of full duty. perhaps i wasn't ready to come back to full duty and sure, maybe we should have thought of that. *shrugs* but we didn't. i felt just fine at the time. no hard feelings over here. so what is the deal?

HR sent me home. meanwhile the clock is ticking. i haven't heard whether or not i am going into work saturday, my monday, when both my doc and HR are closed, with no hope of communication until mid-shift on real monday. and i am out of sick leave, thanks to the genius at HR who cleverly just submitted all 15 of my days off as sick leave, not as partial sick leave and partial annual leave. tell me exactly why they ask for paperwork if they are going to do it their own way? i kinda wanted a little in the bank, yo. it's MY leave and i should dictate how it is spent. my back is sore from the treatment this morning, my guts are a wreck from worry (over the bid, the pain, radiology, and if i'm going to get slapped with unpaid time off). i've actually lost 4 pounds in 10 days from all this stress. can we please????

i'm going to carefully put my uniforms in the laundry (one at a time, no heavy lifting, i know!) and try to nap a bit. updates will be forthcoming. i effin hope.