What a day!

Yesterday started off just like any other school day. I got the girls out of bed so that they could be ready for school by the time that the school bus arrived here. After that, I went downtown to run some errands. Little did I know that I would be spending time in the emergency room not once but TWO times in less than than a 5 hour time span...

I was not sick but I did have a health concern that I was not expecting at about 1:00. I was a bit nervous about it so I called Danley. Fortunately, he was already in town. He told me to come and pick him up and we would go to the clinic together. When I called the clinic to get an appointment, I was told that in a case like I was experiencing, I needed to go directly to the E.R. We did as I was told. Soon after arriving, the doctor came in. She did a certain procedure to check things out. The problem was diagnosed and treatment was given. Stan and I both left the hospital feeling much better than we did when we entered the building. Thank You, Lord!!!

For the rest of the afternoon, more errands in Leoti and Scott City were run. When we arrived at home, Stan, the girls and I were carrying in bags. I, of course, was at the end of the line. I tend to walk considerably slower than everyone else. LOL! When I got to the porch, my shoe struck the next porch step and I felt myself falling. It is amazing that in the split seconds it takes to fall, I was trying to protect my head from being hurt. I do that naturally ever since my heart surgery. My doctors cautioned me that by my blood having to be so thin to go through my mechanical heart valve, I have to be especially cautious with head injury. If it strikes something hard, chances are that I will bleed to death before help arrives. Yeppers. It is a scary situation for me.

Well, Folks, I can tell you that my head is just fine. When I felt myself getting ready to tumble, I reached my left hand out for the porch handrail next to me. The rest of my body followed my hand. In one easy movement, my body succeeded in taking out the entire handrail!!! It was over. No doubt about it, I was about to hurt.

If you have been reading my blog for the past few months, you will recall that Stan and I had done a major transformation of our front porch last Spring. Just to the left of our porch steps, is a slope that we planted with a variety of plants. The Rose Moss that we planted did very well and spread even better than we had hoped. The slope was beautiful! Unfortunately, when the l-o-n-g stretch of triple digits hit, it became more and more difficult for me to do the weeding, etc that needed to be done in our flower gardens. The weeds and sticker patches sprung up from the soil and were doing especially well. For the past couple of weeks, I have planned on getting out there and yanking them out but for a variety of reasons, I had never gotten it done. (That changes this weekend!) Most of my body landed on that slope. My clothing became a sticker magnet. Stickers were protruding from my shirt and jeans. They also connected my clothing directly to my body. Yep, you could definitely say that there was some pain involved.

But while I was in free fall motion, my right hand reached out to break my fall. Hmmm, that was when things really went bad. Instantly, my arm hurt and began to swell. Fortunately, Abigayle who had just walked into the foyer, saw all of this happening. She hollered for help for me. Help arrived quickly. LOL! Stan sat me up on my rump and began to survey the damages that had been done. He began to pluck out the stickers by hand. But when that became a painful experience for him, he resorted to his pocket knife. My shirt was just coated with stickers. It reminded me of a neat project we did in Girl Scouts yesteryear when we were doing a project for Christmas. We took oranges and covered them in cloves, etc. By the time that our project was completed, very little orange was visible. That is how my shirt was. LOL! I knew that bad things were getting worse when Stan instructed Leighlyn to go after a blanket. I knew it was a wonderful temp outside so since we didn't need the blanket for warmth, something else was at stake. Yeah, I was right. Leighlyn held the blanket on my back side while Stan took my shirt off of me. It was the quickest way to pull the stickers out of me. Unfortunately, I am quite sure that the people who may have been watching this activity from my front side, will never be the same again. I worry that straight men may have been converted to gay-dom as soon as they saw me with no shirt on. LOL!!!

So anyway, most of the stickers were now gone. We were now going to proceed to the next step--getting me off of the sidewalk. By this time, my right forearm was swelling more and more. Burning pain was really settling into it also. Without my right arm to push me up, I needed extra help. Stan called Leif to come and help him lift me to my feet. Leif was at our house in just a couple of minutes. Once he arrived, Stan asked him if he had brought his crane. Ha! Ha! Unfortunately, the answer was "NO" which meant that both men would have to raise me to my feet. I felt sooo bad for them. In one quick motion, they had me off of my rear end and up on the bottoms of my feet.

My arm was continuing to swell like a balloon. The decision was made to take me to the hospital--AGAIN! Once there, the same doctor who had come to my rescue a few hours earlier, entered the emergency room. X-rays were ordered. Well, nothing appears to be broken. Time will tell for sure. In situations like this, it sometimes takes a few days before the broken bone can be seen through x-rays. A great ice pack was given to me which helped the swelling and consequent pain considerably.

Ordinarily, I would have gone straight home after leaving the hospital. Last night was different though. Abigayle and a bunch of other grade school students were going to be performing a musical number during the football game's half-time. Stan and I could simply not miss out on that. I took the ice bag with me. We went to sit with my mother. She began laughing at me before we reached her. She pointed out that the ice bag looked just like a sanitary napkin wrapped around my naked arm!!! OMG! I took a closer look and determined that she was exactly right!!! LOL!!! I considered removing the bag from my arm and tucking it away in my bra-ket where my cellphone was also nestled. There would have been room for the two objects but if the bag was there, my arm would continue to burn and ache. So the bag remained on my arm for the rest of the evening. People who saw it are probably wondering today about what kind of action is being done by having a sanitary napkin wrapped around an arm. Who knows? People may have gone out today, purchased a package of these feminine hygiene products and wrapped one around their forearms. So if you happen to go downtown and see someone walking around with one of these pads secured around their arm, leg, etc., have a little chuckle because YOU know where the idea came from. LOL!!!

This morning, Stan returned to the porch and re-attached the handrail to it. I was advised that handrails are not necessarily built to handle LARGE FLYING OBJECTS. Stan is such a sweet husband... Some of the swelling is better. There is still pain and a huge multi-colored bruise appeared on my chest, of all things. I am confident that I will be returning to normal sooner than later.

Be careful out there, Folks!!! This same fate could be lurking somewhere in YOUR future...

VLE-B