#MicroblogMondays: Just call me Superklutz :p

It's the Victoria Day holiday long weekend here in Canada -- our unofficial kickoff to summer (even though summer isn't officially until mid-June, and schools here don't let out until mid/late June).  It has been... interesting, and certainly not at all what I had planned or expected.  

The long story short (shortER? -- despite the #MM tag, this is NOT a "microblog" post, lol): I was at the zoo on Friday with dh, BIL, SIL, Little Great-Nephew, his mom (Older Nephew's Wife), her cousin and her baby.  And I took a tumble down some stairs outside a cafe there.  :(  Went in to buy some water and snacks -- we were all getting hungry & thirsty, and we'd been walking for hours -- and it was SO hot & crowded inside, and a very long wait in line. 

Came outside in the bright sunshine, looking around for everyone -- took off my mask -- and then either tripped or missed a step -- and down I went. Banged myself up good, including bruises and scrapes on my left ankle, elbow and shoulder, and a gash on the upper left side of my head. 

There was blood. :(  

I am VERY lucky -- there was a first aid station right near where I fell, and the medics were there in minutes. They tried to stabilize me enough so that dh could drive me to the closest hospital, but I felt woozy every time they tried to sit me up. So I got sent to a local hospital in an ambulance (my first -- and hopefully my LAST!! -- ambulance ride ever!). They did a CT scan there, which was clear, and ultimately decided I didn't even need stitches. It's about a 1 cm (1/2 inch) gash, and they just cleaned it up, put a cotton pad and some polysporin on it and wound some gauze around my head to keep it in place before sending me home. (They also gave me a tetanus shot.) Dh changed the dressing yesterday (I think he did an even better job than the ER doctor did, frankly...!) and the bleeding seemed to have stopped, but I still have it on for now. I've been sleeping with a towel spread atop my pillowcase as an extra precaution/attempt not to get blood on my (nice, newly bought! WHITE!!) sheets.

Of course it is a long weekend here. Normally, my family doctor's office is open on Saturdays and Mondays, but I won't be able to see/follow up with him (or someone else there) until at least tomorrow. :(  I left a message on their voice mail, so hopefully I will be able to get an appointment later tomorrow.  I have had concussions/bangs to the head before and this has been pretty mild thus far, comparatively speaking -- just some occasional twinges at the gash site and low-level head/sinus aches (especially if I'm tired), and especially on Saturday. 

However, the left side of my face, including the area under my left eye, swelled up overnight Saturday/Sunday -- and it's still pretty puffy today. I've been taking ibuprofen and applying ice every few hours to try to bring it down a bit. The ER doctor warned me to take it easy for a few days -- not too much screen time (TV, phone, laptop, etc.) -- so if I'm not around the blogworld or social media much for the next while, you'll know why...!  I've been off my laptop since Thursday night, although I have been on my phone on & off. I can tell I'm overdoing it when I start getting tired or my head starts aching a little more.

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We were having a pretty good time until this happened. Disappointingly, a lot of the zoo animals were not on display, for various reasons, including to limit transmission of both covid and avian flu (!) -- and others were taking naps or hiding out -- but it was fun being out with LGN and taking photos. The zoo is not far from where we used to live, but we hadn't been there in more than 30 years, since LGN's dad (Older Nephew) was not quite two years old. It's a HUGE zoo -- more than 10 kilometres/6 miles of trails -- and we did a LOT of walking, including up a very long gradual hill/incline near the cafe where we stopped. I was huffing & puffing by the time we reached the top, and even felt a bit queasy at one point (and of course we've been in mostly couch potato mode during covid...!). The day started out cool (we got there around 10:30 a.m.), but it was getting warmer, and the sun was quite hot. We'd had breakfast around 7 -- I had a muffin when we stopped at Tim Hortons kiosk earlier in the morning, and I'd brought a bottle of water in my purse -- but it was almost gone and I was dying for a nice cold new bottle, and I was getting hungry too. So around 1:30, I went inside the cafe/food pavilion with Older Nephew's Wife (ONW) and her cousin (who also wanted some food) while the others waited outside. It was HOT and stuffy and crowded in there, and only about half the people (or less) were wearing masks, which made me nervous. I had a cloth mask on (put it on whenever we went in a building), but it was all damp from my sweat. And the service was VERY slow -- it took forever to get to the order window, and then again to actually get our stuff. 

I got my stuff ahead of ONW, and headed out the first door I saw (there were a couple of entrances/exits). I came outside at the top of a broad set of steps -- there were railings/bannisters on either side, I think, but I was right in the middle. I whipped off my mask. It was bright sunlight, and I looked around to get my bearings and saw the others off in the distance to my right. 

I'm not sure what happened next... I took a step forward -- and either missed the step, or maybe I tripped over my sandal? Anyway, down I went. :(  Next thing I know, I'm laying there with my leg against the concrete step, staring up at the sky with people gathering around me. My glasses were gone (so I couldn't see much more than what was directly above me, and not altogether clearly...!), and I didn't know where my purse was. 

As I said, the first aid team was there very quickly, slapping a blood pressure cuff and pulse oximeter on me, putting ice and cotton on the gash site to absorb the blood, and talking to me -- both to get information and (I'm sure) to make sure I stayed conscious and judge whether I was alert & coherent. (I was.) I told them my family was just over there, dh's name and description, and I heard people calling out his name. Eventually they found him, and he rushed over and held my hand while they worked on me (and collected my purse and glasses). SIL came over & gave me her sunglasses, because the sun was glaring in my eyes -- and even LGN wandered over and looked down at me with (I will never forget this detail!) a peanut butter sandwich in his hand (lol).  I was told later that all the way home, he kept repeating, "Loribeth fall down! Hit head!" and it was the first thing he said to Older Nephew when he got home that night. I just hope he wasn't too traumatized...!  :(  

My vitals were all good -- although they dropped a bit when they tried to sit me up. The idea was they'd try to get me into their cart and take dh & me to our car in the parking lot, and then he could take me to the hospital. All I could think was dh would never find his way there himself -- I'm always the navigator! (lol) -- and I didn't think I was up to navigating just then.  But whenever they tried to sit me up, I would start feeling like I was fading out. :( 

So -- they called an ambulance. (I will probably get billed for that, although I think my medical plan will cover at least part of it? Otherwise, the only cost to us was $14 for hospital parking.)  I thought dh was going to come with me, but he wasn't allowed. But I knew he would come to the hospital and find me there. They said I'd need my health card, and I told dh where to find it in my wallet (as well as the parking ticket so he could get out of the zoo parking lot!). They put one of those collars on me to stabilize my neck as a precaution and loaded me up in back. All I had with me was my health card and SIL sunglasses!!  No glasses (and staring straight up, so I couldn't see very much...!), no phone, no purse. Very weird feeling. 

It wasn't very far, and the guy in the back with me was so nice -- kept chatting to me and taking my vitals. He put a mask on me and asked if I'd been vaccinated for covid. We got there around 3, I think? and had to wait for a while in a long hallway crowded with other patients on stretchers and ambulance personnel, until a nurse finally came to take my info and admit me. (The ambulance guy cracked, "Yeah, she was at the zoo... got chased by a polar bear... or was it a jaguar?" I said, "Make it a polar bear -- I'm from Manitoba," lol.)(Churchill, in northern Manitoba, is known as "the polar bear capital of the world.") Meanwhile, the ambulance guy went out a couple of times to see if he could see dh anywhere -- and found him!  I'm not sure he was supposed to be there, but thankfully nobody kicked him out.  ;)  They finally put me in a room, and a dr finally came to assess me and send me for a CT scan (which took all of about 20 minutes from the time I left the room until the time I got back). He came back to tell us the results were clear, and that they didn't think stitches would be necessary (whew!). 

Another young dr came to administer the tetanus shot, clean up and dress my wound and give us further instructions. He told me to leave the dressing on at least overnight, and gave dh some extra pads and gauze and tape, in case it needed changing. I asked him if I could take a shower when we got home (because I was feeling sweaty & filthy even before this happened...!) and he said I shouldn't get the dressing wet while the wound was still fresh -- so I said, "What I wore a shower cap?" and he said okay to that -- so dh went to the drugstore and got me one when we got home (left the hospital around 7 and got home around 8 -- about 4 hours there total, which is not at all bad, especially with covid still around, and a long weekend). I felt SO much better after that that -- and some food & water. (I STILL haven't washed my hair yet -- not looking forward to trying to get the dried-up blood out of it...!) 

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So it's been a pretty weird weekend. I've been trying to take it easy. Listening to a lot of music on the 70s music channel -- very mellow and soothing, lol.  This is the first I've been on my laptop since Thursday night. Promised dh I wouldn't overdo it ;) and trying to keep my word (and probably failing...!).  

I feel very, VERY lucky (it could have been SO much worse!!).  It's easier to dust yourself off and bounce back from something like this when you're 31 or 41, instead of 61...!  :(  

But I also feel like a total klutz. 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.