A wet and slippery day

My Aunt Pauline was walking home in the rain from the dentist, when she approached one of those signs that say, “Construction! Next twenty feet of sidewalk CLOSED. Take two block detour ⇒ ⇒ to get by.” Naturally, in the wind and weather, she did not want to take the two block detour. There is one of those at my hospital, in the short distance between the exit I usually take, and my midnight bus stop, and I seldom want to go the extra distance. I frequently do what she did. In other words, I ignore the sign and creep by, taking care not to trip on construction materials or large chunks of concrete and at the same time watch for traffic so that I don’t get run over by some late night drunkard. At midnight after eight hours on one’s feet, or after the dentist any time, let alone in wind and rain, one just does not want to struggle that extra distance. So she didn’t. She carefully stepped through the construction debris, and fell flat on her face. She even broke her umbrella. When I heard the story, I was relieved that she hadn’t impaled herself on it, like some disgraced medieval statesman, flinging himself on his sword. Bleeding all over, she took the bus to the Urgent Care, where they were astonished that she had ridden the bus in that condition. “Well, how else would I have gotten there?” she later said. When the PA (Physician Assistant) assessed her neuro signs, one side of her face was all droopy – normally a bad sign. She pointed out that this was from the dentist, but taking no chances, he scheduled a quick little cat scan. All was well with her inner head, if not her outer head. Now she has two shiners (aren’t they sometimes called “mice”?), and a big scrape on her forehead. When I came to change the bandage, the scrape was several days old, and looking much better, but nonetheless… Perhaps now, after this object lesson, I will take a different exit and walk the extra few feet to my midnight bus stop.

This last picture is the amazing tree I saw out of her living room window as I changed the dressing. I once read an article in a medical journal which said that patients with a view of a tree recovered more quickly than those with no tree. This wonderful tree should surely speed her recovery.

You can click here to see the actual healing wound. It looked a lot more impressive in person.