Random Thoughts

As I noted last week, in July I fell out of the back of a moving van. Thankfully, it wasn’t moving at the time! But, nevertheless, I hurt myself when I hit the pavement.

I opened my eyes to see my wife leaning over me. She told me that I had passed out – but I argued that I had not.

She then informed me that (1) she had slapped my face several times trying to wake me up and (2) our daughters had called 911 and asked for an ambulance.

Since I had no recollection of those occurrences, I began to think that maybe I had passed out. Meanwhile, I continued to argue with her – this time about the cost of an ambulance ride.

I told her to call back and cancel the ambulance. But, while I was speaking, I heard it coming down the street. Before long, emergency medical technicians (EMTs) were hovering over me, asking me my name and birthday to make sure I was lucid.

I was in the process of telling them that I didn’t want to ride in the ambulance when I began feeling myself slipping into unconsciousness. At that point one of the EMTs said that they really needed to put me into the ambulance – and I gave up without a fight.

On the way to the hospital, the EMTs gave me some kind of intravenous fluid and one of them told the other that my blood pressure (which had fallen dramatically) was going back up.

When I got to the emergency room, the doctor asked me how I was feeling. I told him that my left leg really hurt but otherwise I was okay.

He said: “Your wife told us she slapped you several times. Does she do that a lot?” He was grinning when he said it, so I said: “All the time!”

Well, sometimes you have to resort to humor to keep from crying! I knew that I had wrecked my left knee – as we will see next week.