Sunday, February 28, 2010

Oh the humiliation!!!

So do you want to hear what happened to me this weekend? Really, you do?? Well, let's just say this past Saturday goes down as the most humiliating day of my life. It's a long, long story with lots of ridiculous details that I'll do my best to leave out. So here goes:

Saturday morning I was rushing around trying to get things ready for my sister and her kids to arrive. Ryan was heading out of town for the day and I wanted to get a shower before he left. I hopped in the shower. Now our shower is in a separate little room from the rest of the bathroom. This room doesn't have a towel bar in it (hmmm...note to self...need to fix that), so I always have to remember to carry my towels in there with me. On Saturday morning I forgot. So I was getting out of the shower and realized I didn't have a towel with me.

This is when it gets good: So I walked across our ceramic tile floor dripping wet and in a split second I slipped and landed flat on my back and hit my head on the floor. Yes, it was one of those cartoon moments that happen in a Looney Toons episode or something. When I hit my head on the floor my vision went black for a minute. I don't think I blacked out and at the time I felt certain that I didn't. Now I'm not so sure.

I got up off the floor and felt fine except for my throbbing head. I got dressed, put make-up on and headed downstairs. I mentioned the incident to Ryan and he even said "do you think it's okay if I leave?" and of course I thought I was totally fine. So Ryan left and I made a few phone calls and even told my sister and sister-in-law about my bathroom slip and how ridiculous it was that I fell.

I took some Excedrin because my entire head, neck and back were starting to hurt. I sat down on the couch to rest for a minute because my head was throbbing at this point. And in a matter of seconds I could feel myself beginning to pass out.

Here I was home ALONE with a two year old and a four year old and I could feel everything spinning and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I picked up the phone, which was right beside me, and hit redial to call my sister. Apparently I said "I'm passing out. I can't breathe. I'm calling 911." Then I hung up. You can imagine how thrilled she was to get that phone call.

Isn't this a great story? Ugh!

I called 911 and once they figured out what was going on they very wisely told me to have Christian unlock the front door. (Side note: The whole time I'm fighting consciousness while talking to the 911 operator, McKenna is standing there crying about her poopy. Oh my word...that girl).

I heard a car pull into the driveway and I thought it was the paramedics, so I hung up with the 911 guy (who by the way, was awesome!!) and suddenly my neighbor down the street (who we go to church with and his son goes to preschool with Christian...we know them well) comes running through my front door. At this point I'm totally confused as to why he is there, but I was so thankful someone was there for my kids. To make a long story short, Amy called him and he came to my rescue. Whew....next the paramedics rolled up. An ambulance and a Medic truck. The medic truck even decided to go with some flashing lights, just so my neighbors would be sure to know something was going on. Lovely!

With some reluctance on my part, they loaded me onto a stretcher and loaded me into the back of an ambulance for the first time in my life. I DID NOT want to go to the hospital, in fact I was quite worried about running into someone I knew while in the ER, but the paramedics talked me into it. They were concerned because I hit my head and then almost passed out over an hour later. They thought I could possibly have some bleeding in my head or something. I was not convinced. In fact I told the paramedic that I thought I was throwing up because I was just car sick in the back of the ambulance.

As soon as I got to the ER they gave me a breathing treatment because I think I had an asthma attack because of all the drama. I really started feeling better after that. My heart rate became normal once again. My blood pressure was just fine. Next up was a CT scan that I was convinced would be clear, but it wasn't. I had a concussion!

So to recap: What did I do on Saturday???
I slipped on the bathroom floor, almost passed out while alone with my kids and ended up with a concussion! Just great! Thankfully I really am feeling fine. I felt funny all day Saturday. Ryan thought my speech sounded a little slurred and my head hurt all day. And my vision just seemed off. Today I feel sort of like I have whip lash. My neck, head and shoulders are really, really sore, but I haven't felt dizzy at all. I went to church this morning and we had some very fun company this afternoon! So I'm doing fine. Just totally embarrassed that everyone in the world seemed to know about my accident within an hour of it happening. Thankfully we are surrounded by some wonderful friends, who we most definitely can count on in an emergency!

And by the way, Natasha Richardson's name was mentioned to me over and over on Saturday (by paramedics, nurses, doctors and friends). Lesson learned, if you hit your head....get it checked out! I'm so thankful that everyone in the ER treated my situation seriously. I felt so silly for being there, and they assured me over and over again that I made the right choice. Even though they couldn't medically do a thing for my concussion, it was important to find out that it was just a concussion and that there was no blood clot of any kind or anything else going on.

So what did you do this weekend??

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

All I did this weekend was work. There was some of the normal osf drama, I am telling u, my work would make for a great book or a great tv show. It never gets boring. I am glad everything turned out ok, and though its not funny u got hurt the way u told if kept a smile on my face yet I was like "oh No" every other line.

Lindsey

Anonymous said...

Judy...
So glad you are okay....as funny as the story is...I know it could have been more serious.

It was great seeing you yesterday!

-Laurie

Heidi said...

So glad that your okay! What a terrible day!!

Heather said...

Glad you're ok! Blows to the head and TBI can certainly be serious! Put up some towel racks and maybe look at getting some scatter rugs for the bath room!

Anonymous said...

Judy, that is so scary! Glad that you were o.k.

Christine

Katy said...

oh Judy - that's awful!!! i'm so relieved that Amy called your neighbor and that the medics took you right in - and thankful it wasn't any worse. STILL - concussions are serious business you've got to be careful! Put a towel bar up, get some rugs on that bathroom floor and BE CAREFUL!!!

Alicia said...

Oh wow... I bet Ryan wasn't happy about being out of town when you were taken to the ER! How scary!

Brennan Blog said...

OMGsh! Glad you are ok!

Jenn said...

wow, you always need something big to blog about huh?! jk, i'm glad to hear that you are ok and doing better now. please get a towel rack asap!!!

Holly said...

Wow, what a day. I hope you're feeling better and I'm so glad that everything was okay! It does make a great story, though. I'm just surprised you didn't have someone snap a few pictures of the ambulance for the blog. Must have been the concussion, because I know you always photograph everything for your blog :)

Millicent said...

I'm with Holly...suprised you don't have pics! You need to get Christian trained for that :)
I'm sooooo glad you're okay. I know a girl who is coming up on the one year anniversary of losing her husband to a brain bleed...he fell in the kitchen and wouldn't go to the hospital :(

Sarah Joy said...

Oh my girl! You have got to get a good slip proof rug down in that bathroom and a towel bar... are we all repeating ourselves and sounding like your mother yet? I love you and I am so thankful you are ok.

Anonymous said...

Hi Judy,

Wow! What a story you have to tell, probably for years to come. All kidding aside, I'm so happy that you're okay. By the way, my husband served on our local Rescue squad for many years, and most people, including the rescue guys, don't want to ride in the wagon but aren't we grateful that it's a service available to us here in the U.S.

Sally