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Clumsy

2008-05-20

I went to the gym this morning for a class I've been dying to take. I was admittedly a little out of it when I arrived because I'm still recovering from a sinus infection and definitely didn't get enough sleep this week. But last week when I talked to the instructor about her class and she said, "join us next Friday. I promise, it'll kick your ass", I figured this would be just the thing to help me regain my strength and vigor. Plus, I've been bored with my workout routines lately and I thought a little kick might be exactly what my lazy ass needed. I just didn't know she meant it so literally.

I found my spot in the class--right in the middle of the floor--and noticed that the other women all had two sets of free weights next to them. I looked around the room and saw an open chest filled with weights, so I walked over, bent down and reached in the bin for a set of 8 and 5 pounders. I stood up quickly, and when I did I felt and heart "CRACK".

I sliced the top of my head on the chest's metal cover. I cursed myself because, really, I'm such a clumsy fool, and told all the gawking women that I was fine and it was no big deal. And I really thought I was fine, and was even going to stay for the class, until I felt warm liquid dripping down the side of my face. That's when I ran to the front desk and asked if I had a cut on my head, and the three workers all gasped and pointed and told me to go immediately to the hospital to "get that awful looking thing checked out."

It all felt so oddly reminiscent of another time not too long ago when I suffered a head injury at the gym and had to go to the hospital...

So, back to the exact same emergency room I went. I didn't feel nauseous until I walked into that waiting room, saw the same staff and all the horrid memories came rushing back to me. But this time, luckily, I had a wonderful PA who told me that I am actually a legend around those hospital halls; they'd never had a patient with a brain bleed before and they were so unprepared for someone like me that day. Because of me, though, they've completely changed how they handle all head trauma cases, because you never know when someone who seems so cognizant and aware (like I was when I first arrived that day) may be suffering an internal bleed. She took her time examining me because she wanted to make sure a peripheral cut was all that happened, and once she determined I cut through just a bit of scalp, she cleaned out the wound, numbed my head and closed the gash with two staples.

Yes, that's right: I now have two staples in my head. Gee, I really know how to live it up on my days off from work, don't I?

I go back in ten days to get the staples removed, but in the meantime I think this might be fate's way of telling me to quit working out. Either that, or from now on I need to wear protective head gear to the gym.

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