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Episode 104 - Illness and Injury
Share your stories of illness and injury so that we may be entertained by the misfortune of others!
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Other than the occasional cold, and one serious case of the flu - fever, shaking, the whole production - I've never had a serious illness, certainly nothing worth going to hospital for. Hale and hearty, that's my motto.
Unfortunately I don't have any decent stories. I fell off a wall one time when I was really little but all that did was actually straighten my teeth (never had to have braces because of it).
I also fell off playground equipment and bit through my lip. The only thing I remember about that was everyone freaking out except me.
About 6 months ago I was taking some junk out to the backyard for a bonfire (we live in the country, no-one cares about fires), and I was breaking up a wooden frame from one of those small, cheap, wall mounted whiteboards. I was breaking it on my knee, and suddenly the corner joint of the frame came apart. The wood didn't fracture, but the frame was in pieces, so I went to throw it into the fire. As I pulled my arm back to throw, I noticed a cut on my forearm. The corner join between wooden pieces contained a metal bit, and damn it if that fucker wasn't sharp. So sharp, in fact, that it somehow cut my forearm, right to the muscle, and so cleanly that I didn't even feel it. So deep, that I saw the muscle itself. It was like seeing a side of meat that had been partially butchered. And it freaked me out that it didn't hurt at all. Not many pain sensors on that part of my arm, I guess. And it didn't bleed much either. Since I didn't get it stitched, I have this wide purple scar that I tell peope I got from a knife fight.
So one day when my dad and I went to one of the far off paddocks on the tractor, we took the go cart with us, and I used the go cart for the trip back. This particular path was consisted of a moderate hill followed by a long flat stretch and then another downhill stretch into the creek. The path was fenced on either side with barbed wire fences. Anyway, because of the long flat stretch you needed to get as much speed as possible on that initial downhill run, which I did, not using the brake once and managing to out pace dad on the tractor. Then just after I hit the flat stretch, something happened and I lost control of the go cart (I think my hat flew off and I tried to grab it), and I turned pretty much 90 degrees and went straight into the paddock, through the barbed wire fence.
I had cuts all over me, and a particular bloody throat, where I now have a very impressive scar that goes along most of the front of my neck. No stitches, even though it probably deserved it, but I did get a tetanus shot.
I have been in many accidents. But there is only one that got me to the hospital. When I was six my dad built a wooden ramp for me and all my friends to jump our bikes off of. Much fun was had with this ramp. One afternoon I jumped my bike off the ramp, and my front wheel fell off...in mid flight. When I came down I landed HARD on my left knee and and skidded for a bit. This little accident left me with a horribly bloodied knee. My folks, fearing the worst, took me to the ER (at the hospital where my Aunt worked). She had a doctor look at me within about 15 minutes (awesome). They used tweezers for the next 2 hours pulling gravel and rocks out of my knee. Thankfully though I have no lasting scars from that accident.
About a year after the knee accident I was riding my bike again and I passed a house with a teenagers and his mom having a huge fight in their front yard (no friggen clue what they were yelling about). As I was making it to their driveway I herd the teen gun the engine of his VW Bus. Then I felt this wall smash into me. Yes you guessed it. The teenagers hit me with his VW Bus. Funny thing is I was completely unharmed. According to my mom what the police found were indentations on the VW from my bike handle on the face of the bus and a dent from my peddle on the plastic bumper (the bus was on really small tires). My bike saved my life.
Not sure how old I was when this happened but I remember running towards the stairs to greet my dad when he came home. I got to the stairs, started down them, then my entire world went spinning and BAM, stopped. I was laying up against the wall, looking back up the stairs. Yeah, everyone has a falling-down-the-stairs story.
This last story really isn't a story about getting hurt, it's more about how the human body is really cool. So I was a young teen (can't remember how old) and my folks and I were in California. We went to some park that had a geyser and the thing wasn't supposed to go off for something like 20 minutes. So dad and I went exploring around the area. We found this awesome little spot that was a clearing of bamboo trees. In the little spot dad thought that he would show me something. The showed me just how tough bamboo is by trying to break a stick of it over his leg. Yeah fine dad. So I tried it. Snap. Whoopie. So as we are walking back, I notice that my left leg feels funny. I scratch it, the pull my hand up. Blood. Great I cut my self. I use paper towel to stop the bleeding. Nothing major, it scabs over. Fast forward four months. It's fall and that means soccer season. So dad and I are playing some soccer at a local park. Dad kicked a ball at me rather hard and I stop it with my left let. The a couple of seconds later I notice my leg feels weird. There's a little bit a blood, so I look again and there is a little bit of green sticking out of my leg. Okayyyyy. I the precede to pull a 4.5 inch piece of bamboo out of my leg (yes I measured it when we got home). That god damn thing had been sitting in my leg for 4 months. Not only that but my body had healed around it and there was perfectly good skin in the hole. Now though that hole has closed up and I don't even have a scar. Nifty.
During that period right after I was hit by the hockey puck(a minute perhaps, before ambulance guys got to me), I had the capability for a grand total of four thoughts:
1. Something just hit me.
2. It's probably a hockey puck.
3. "Give it to a kid"? Hell no, I got a claim on that one.
4. What's that, I'm bleeding?
But, for the record: I still have that goddamn puck.
Illness, however: my extended bout with pneumonia. When I was three. That sucked. The only clear memory of that time I have is that I was so dehydrated that the doctor had difficulty putting an IV in, because my veins had shrunk.
I dragged myself out and my foot had 12 barbed, and rather poisonous spines embeded deep in it... We managed to get me to a doctor and had some stuff percribed, but while we were getting there however it managed to paralyse my foot and cause lots and lots...and lots of pain. I still couldn't walk on it for a good week after.
Thankfully they're all out now :D
My other decent injury is when i ran full-pelt headfirst into a glass door and got me a concussion :s
We were coming inside from PE and we went down to the locker room, and we were taking showers, when I slipped and landed straight on my forehead. Everybody was really suprised afterward, because I just got up and kept on showering. Then I fell again, this time on my ass. Then I got up, and I put my clothes on, but after that, something wierd happened. There was this period of time between when I left the locker room and when I got up the stairs that I don't remember.
When I was aware of my surroundings, in an area right after the stairs from the locker room, I felt extremely wierd. I remember things being very blury and hardly being able to walk. Then my teacher sees my loafing around and he's goin', "Erik! Erik! Are you ok?" I don't recall if I responded or if I just stood there, but he carried my shoulder as I hobbled to the office.
When I got in the office, things just got worse. I sat there trying to talk to them, but it was like I couldn't. Everything they said was jarbled and I couldn't hear them clearly. Not to mention my vision, which was still very bad. I still had means of talking, I just couldn't understand what I was saying. So when they completely realized I had a concussion, the vice principal took me to the hospital.
As far as the trip to the medical center, I remember very little. When we did finally get to the building, they put me through an MRI. Ha, it was the first time I had ever been to the ER on a stretchbed. After that, they had me in a room, and my grandparents got there, then my parents, and then my siblings. It was crazy.
When I got home, I couldn't go to sleep, as much as I wanted to. Did anyway! I was too tired to obey the doctor's orders.
Other than that, I don't have many interesting injuries.
The worst illness I've ever had was bronchitis, and man, did that ever suck ass.
As far as getting sick, I was hospitalized with pneumonia when I was two years old. My mother has shown me pictures though I don't remember it. It was right during Easter, and the story I was told was my mother brought me a giant stuffed bunny to cheer me up but I rejected it and just wanted to go home.
I have had a hand in causing a few injuries though. Once I was messing with one of those flag poles that you could mount on your bike, only to nearly stab my sisters eye out with the metal end of it (no stitches, only a butterfly). Another time my sister, a couple friends and I were balancing a small open trailer, and my brother was joking around holding the tongue, then we all decided to run to the front. He dropped it... right on his pinkie toe. Sliced it 3/4 the way off right through the bone. My mom had just had a baby less then a week earlier and was not pleased with us to say the least.
1) They wear a crap load a pads
2) The nets on the sicks they use are about 3 - 4 times bigger than anyone else's sticks
The reason for the pads is pretty much obvious. A lacross sitck acts much like an Atlatal, it is just a leaver that provides more power. I was using a long stick, so that ball got up to pretty good speed. I digress. Before I did anything I told our teacher that if I hurt him I will not be held responsible. The teacher said "sure, fine, whatever". *evil grin* I asked if he was ready, he said yes (hunched over in a tennis player 'ready' stance). I stood back about 20 - 30 feet away, and took a shot with as much power as I could muster.
God damn it that ball didn't make a B-line right to his face. Nailed him right between the eyes. Knocked out for about three hours, minor concussion. Fucker's face swelled up so badly that he couldn't see for almost a week. Ah...good memories.
I swear, she has some sort of Wolverine-type healing factor or something.
And here's my injury story, and it's a doosey:
SO it was Otakon 2002 or 2003 or something, and a friend of mine, Fanboy, was rooming with Kate and myself. For some unexplainable reason, he decided to start his martial arts excercises in the hotel room. He was a pa-qua instructor at the time as well, and insisted he knew what he was doing. What he was doing was back handsprings......on the bed. After about three or four of these, Kate (and I) warned him to stop and that it wasn't a smart thing to be doing. He assured us that his instructor-ness was strong and there'd be no problem.
And then there was the defaning *CRACK* as he smacked his forehead on the lip of the headboard of the bed, mid-handspring. Ohhhh the blood. It was literally gushing from his forehead and we desprately tried to stem the flow of what turned out to be about a 2" gash at his hairline. As we attempted to move him to the lobby to meet the ambulance, he promptly passed out in the hallway in front of the elevators. SO now we had about six con-gors in the hall, some in costume, trying to stop blood gushing from a pa-qua "master's" self-stupiditiy-inflicted head trauma. When he came to a minute or so later, he was okay, and Kate went with him to the hospital when the paramedics showed up where they spent a good four or five hours as he got staples.
Yes, not stitches, staples.
On a related note, this is the same man who while practicing pa-qua in central park on his own, managed to dislocate his own shoulder.
And he wonders why I won't let him give me lessons, jesus.
Eight years old stepped out of the car onto the icy driveway fell face forward, didn't put my arms out and busted off a front tooth.
First day of Highschool, taking a shower at 5:30 in the morning. Stepped on who knows what and fall out of the shower, stick out my hands but fall on the toilet seat, bust off 3 teeth including the one replaced at 8.
First illness was sophomore year at RIT. I had a sore throat that lasted nearly two weeks and was fairly freaked out (my Dad is deaf in one ear from letting a strep throat infection go too long). I went to the health center for the Nth time in two weeks and they gave me erythromycin. I was fine for all of six hours before the vomiting started. Every half hour I'd vomit or dry heave until I finally went to the hospital after ten hours of dry heaving and vomiting. They put me on an IV and kept me until 8am. I was excused from the Japanese quiz I had at 10am and will never take erythromycin again.
The last illness/injury I had (aside from being hit by a car on Friday the thirteenth) was the day before graduation at RIT. My family drove up from Long Island to take me to dinner and then watch me walk on the following day. I started vomiting an hour before they got there, twice before they arrived, four times at the restaurant we went to (and scared a lady out of the bathroom). After the appetizers arrived I promptly went home to vomit in the comfort of my own bathroom. I continued to vomit every half hour (exactly) from 8pm to 4am. After 4am it lessened to vomiting every hour on the hour. Needless to say James tried to comfort me through this but passed out around 2am. Around 4 am I frantically emailed my advisor to make sure I could still walk then run to the bathroom and leave the ceremony early. When I got to the ceremony (trying not to vomit all over Katsu and Rym when I found them earlier in the day) I found out another student, Matt, was absent completely. He was at home vomiting. The connection? The professor we work for in a virus lab had us over three days earlier for a graduation party in our honor. The day afterwards her little kids were spewing vile liquids out both ends. Yes, our professor's kids got us sick and cost one of her graduating seniors their graduation ceremony. The look on her face when she realized what her kids did to us was priceless.
At my high school, we had a winter formal every year. I think it was so all the underclassmen didn't feel left out of the prom. Anyway, during my freshman year, I spent the night before the dance at a friend's house. I woke up on his couch the next morning, and I noticed that the right side of my face felt a little weird. I figure that I must have just slept funny and pinched a nerve or something. Throughout the day, though, my face gets progressively more and more numb. On top of that, my date kept asking me why I looked so funny. The next day, Sunday, not only was my face completely numb, but it was also starting to sag a bit. By Monday, the right half of my face was completely paralyzed and without feeling. The worst part was that that week was tech/dress week for my first high school play. For about a month after that, the doctor sent me to physical therapy where they shocked the muscles and nerves in my face back into working condition. Not a fun thing if you've had dental work.
Story two. My bedroom growing up was essentially a converted garage, which was cool since I had my own back door, a fireplace, and massive living space. I could throw small parties without my mom ever knowing. During the summer, I would usually sleep on the couch that we'd put in there, since the average summer temperature where I lived was about 120 degrees during the day, and 85 or so at night. Since it was so hot, my mom had a swamp cooler installed in my bedroom, and the couch was directly in front of that, so it was probably the coolest place to sleep. One morning, I woke up, took a shower, and groggily went to the sink to brush my teeth. This is where I discovered that my tongue had turned black. It was like I'd been eating black licorice all night. Needless to say, I freaked. Turns out that I'd managed to get a fungal infection on my tongue, most likeley from spores that had found their way into the pads on the swamp cooler.
Cleared it right up with some lozenges. Happily, I my asthama was eventually cured and my allergies were mostly eliminated.
As for Dave + Busters, I really like the idea of the place. It was awesome back in the day. However, now it is just overpriced and bleh. I really think someone needs to work on this concept and find a way to bring back the arcades without sucking.
Anyways, I'm going to share a few stories, but they might gross you out a bit.
One time when I was 8 or 9 I had some horrible flu. I was under a blanket which was fairly thick and it felt as if the wheel of a monster truck was on top of me.
So far I have broken both my kneecaps. Not at once but still.
The first happened when I was 13. We had a replacement teacher in gym class at the end of the year. Her bright idea was to let us wrestle. She puts us into different weight classes and I'm in the biggest one. So in my first match I'm against one of equal size. After some skirmish I try to throw him and succed, only I fall down as well and can't seem to get up. They drag me out and help me up. I don't have to much pain in my right leg but of course I don't continue to wrestle.
After gym we have lunch break and after that we got another class. At this point my leg hurts more and more. I ask the teacher if I could go home and looking at my pale face she agrees. I take the bus home and people look at my droopy face and see that I'm not very well off. I drag myself home from the bus stop and put myself on the couch. Nobody except me is home. After two hours I can't take the pain anymore and call my mom at work. She says she'll get home when work is done and I should take a towel and put some is in it, make a bag and put it on my leg.
A few hours later my older sister and her boyfriend come home. They see me and ask me what's wrong. I tell them and later after my mother arrives, they take me to the hospital. There it was diagnosed that a sinew tore and my knee was slowly filling up with blood. So they scheduled surgery and I was back home three days later.
Pretty much the same happened when I was 17. We are playing basketball in gym class. I catch a pass by jumping to the side, land and immediately fall down. I'm lying on the ground with my legs angled like I was sitting. I prop up my head and look at my legs and see that my left kneecap is sticking out on the left side of the leg instead of the front! The gym teacher was of course immediately there. He straightened out my legs and the kneecap popped back into position. They call an ambulance and I get taken to the next emergency room. I had surgery the next day.
And a final story that doesn't directly fall into either category: When I was 11 or 12, I had a bad cold. It wasn't terrible or anything but it wasn't that great either and I was already on the recovery. The medicine my grandmother gave to me, because she was mostly the person looking after me when I was younger, is taken by putting drops of it into some other liquid. I took them like I did many times before. Later my mother, after she came home from work, had to pick up my sister from music school. I accompany her and as we are sitting in the car and talk, waiting for my sister, I get this cramp in my tongue which gets worse and worse. At the point that we drop of my sister at home I can't feel my tongue anymore and it just sticks out of my mouth and I'm unable to move it. So my mother takes me to see our general practitioner. After spending some embarrassing time in the waiting room, the doctor takes a look at me, asks what I've eaten recently or if I had taken some medicine recently and concludes that my grandmother put to many drops of the medicine. He gave me some other medicine and told me that the effect should wear off soon.
Also, I had to go look up that Bullet Bill game. Pretty fun game, but I'll never beat it.
Never really broke any bones or anything but I did sprain an ankle because some douche kid on the playground I was see-sawing with jumped off while I was in the air. This was a pretty common thing to do but it was also really shitty.