How Not To Do Christmas Eve

We got back from the cruise on December 21st, back to Sissie's house.  We enjoyed a couple of low key days, Sissie did a ton of laundry for various cruisers, we had some good dinners and a few laughs.  I had planned to have Kim take me out in Sissie's car on Christmas Eve to fill in some presents I wasn't able to acquire on the cruise like I wanted to but then I pulled an "oopsie".

Sissie has a very tall bed which she had put Hubs and I into to sleep while at her house.  The first night back I begged off that bed as I was feeling sick still(I totally missed Mexico and never left the stateroom while in port thre)and sleep deprived after sleeping on the cruise ship with the 3 Snoring Caballeros. Our last night I slept not a wink so I was feeling under the weather and sleep deprived so I begged to sleep in the tiny bed in the "Sluggy Memorial Bedroom" by myself.  After 1 night of recovery in there I joined Hubs in the tall bed.

Sissie had generously purchased a small collapsing stool to help me ascend and descend her bed.  All was well until the morning of December 24th.  That's when I tried to use the stool to get out of the bed but my foot was not well placed on the stool and as I leaned forward my right foot slipped off the stool and I stumbled to the floor with my left foot/leg.  Luckily Sissie had a luggage rack near my side of the bed and my suitcase was open on on it.  As I fell I reached out and braced my arms/hands onto the open suitcase, otherwise I would have tumbled headfirst onto the floor and may have concussed my head into the wall or floor.

After regaining my balance I noticed a searing pain in my right lower leg(shin).  I looked down to see blood spurting from my shin and forming a lovely red puddle around my foot on Sissie's fairly new carpeting on her Master bedroom floor. ugh

Having a flash of brilliance I grabbed my phone off the dresser and quickly as I was able stumbled into the bathroom, leaving a trail of blood behind me on the carpet.  I figured if I bled out I'd do less damage on the bathroom's linoleum floor. 

I quickly called Hubs on my phone and it just rang and rang.  Then I called Sissie's phone and got her voicemail.  All the while I could hear everyone below me in the kitchen yakking up a storm.  As the blood continued to pour out of me I began screaming "Help!" at the top of my rather hoarse lungs.  
Damn Karaoke on the cruise made me hoarse!!

About the 4th "Help" someone heard me and Hubs ran up the stairs and saw me on the toilet and the growing pool of blood around my foot.  He rushed to the stairs and called out for Sissie's Hubs to come up to assist me.  Sissie's Hubs was a retired medical corpsman in the military so that was luckily for me.  He came up, assessed the situation, told Hubs to called down for someone to call an ambulance then got to work to staunch the bleeding.  My Hubs found a rolled up bandage wrap so they used a hand towel and wrapped it tightly into the bandage as the EMTs arrived.

**If you are queezy at the sight of blood you may want to skip the rest of this post.**

Since I was still holding my phone I had the presents of mind to snap this "money shot" as I calmly sat there as Sissie's Hubs put pressure on the wound.

If I hadn't braced myself on the open suitcase I could have hit my head and been knocked unconscious and laid up there bleeding for who knows how long, possibly passing out and then knows what would have happened. 8-((

The ambulance arrived in about 7 minutes and I was able to hobble downstairs onto the gurney and got whisked away to the ER.  There the injury was accessed, rewrapped and I was banished into the waiting room.  Once the bleeding was relatively controlled(or at least buried inside a bandage wrapping)Hubs and I waited in that waiting room for hours.

The waiting room was another ordeal.  Most of the folks waiting there seemed like flu victims except for one guy we called "ranty man".  He had been there since 1 am as he loudly told whomever was on the other end of his phone.  He proceeded to curse out the hospital staff, threaten to call his lawyer, etc. but no one threw his ass out.  He sounded like a drug seeker but how knows, I was in no condition to pay that much attention to him.  He was at the least annoying and ratcheting up the uncomfortable feeling among us waiting room folks.

After a few hours they called me back to take a look under my bandage job.  The wound was still gushing when pressure was taken off so they rewrapped it with fresh bandaging material and sent me back to the waiting room.

Finally they took me back for good.  The rewrapping wasn't tight enough so as I dragged my leg/foot across the waiting room back into the ER I left a trail of blood on the floor, soaked the wrapping more and bled into my shoe.  Lovely.

It took hours to stitch the wound up.  I think I went back around 5 pm and was released around 8 pm, with 24 lovely stitches.  Then we had to find a pharmacy on Xmas eve that was still open to fill the antibiotic prescription as well as obtain gauze and rolled bandaging to change the dressing.

Here is the wound early Xmas morning..........

The nurse said I should get a sharpie pen and make two dots for a smiley face. 8-)

I was told to keep my leg elevated which I did on Christmas but we left Sissie's house the day after Xmas and that day was spent in airports, on a plane and walking to get a shuttle bus back to our car and then a 3 hour drive home.

Here's the wound the morning after we got home with a lovely hematoma.

And here it is from the 28th.

Still trying to keep it elevated and not walk.  I am suppose to get the stiches out on the 3rd of January.  Go me!

I'll be fine but please keep Kim in your prayers as well as reader Hilogene as I saw in the comments her husband also passed away on Christmas Day.

Sluggy