My MIAness?

Hi there,

Wellst, I've done another MIA thing.
Didn't mean to, it just sorta happened.

You see, I was at the Front Range Cancer Specialists getting my last chemo of this cycle and looking forward to a week or ten days off before cycle two of how many cycles of... 22 days on, x-amount of days off,  there are in three years...

There had been some sort of emergency earlier in the day and as such I was the last person to leave and they had already shut down the front doors so I had the privilege of being escorted out by a nurse to the secret side door.

Well, knowing what to do as I had fallen three time prior to this and that my falling always was always preceded by an episode of dizziness and light headedness that happened when I stood up, I took inventory and ascertained my balance, equilibrium, dizziness and light headedness were baseline and took off after the nurse who was showing me the way out.
“Out”, is a hall and I got about a third of the way down the hall and ***damn*** the dizziness and the light headedness hit and I know I’m goin’ down. I quick look and there’s no chair or railing so I reeeeeeeealy know I’m goin’ down.
Some 25+ years ago (July 10, 1985) when I had the wreck and during OT (Occupational Therapy) in the months thereafter they taught me to “tuck and roll” on my right side so that if I fell I wouldn’t stick out my right arm to brace myself because if I did that I could/would break my right arm or wrist.
I remember my brain signaling that but the message never got to that part of my nerve system or anatomy and I said to myself…”This is probably gonna hurt.”

I was sorta right.

I didn’t loose consciousness and remember my head bouncing and hitting the floor (carpet over cement) twice and it stung some…which is past tense of sting, I know and there was no sting but I think there is a sensory difference between sting and stung… . It, my face, didn’t hurt for a few minutes.
That few minutes was occupied with getting to Urgent Care which was/is right next door.
Got there and they cleaned me up a bit cuz’ after all, you cant fall face down and not create a cut above/in your eyebrow, right?
I/they had me call Gregg because they didn’t think it a “well” idea that I drive myself home and as he only lives a short distance away he was there in a hurry. So much of a hurry that they weren’t really done assessing me.
They did some “look at my finger” things and decided I should go to the hospital.
As I agreed, Gregg said there was “that look” on my face indicating that I really didn’t wanna go, but I did.

He, that would be Gregg, called up a couple of the Book Study group that was, coincidentally meeting at my house that night, and they got my car and got it home.

So, we headed over the ER at the hospital and got there somewhere before 7:00 ~ the fall happened sometime after 6:00 ~ and they started the assessments all over again…and came up with the conclusion that I should stay overnight for observation. It is now Friday, the fall was Monday and the “overnight” for observation has now turned into, “We think you should stay at least through the weekend”, which certainly is longer that I expected…
Why that’s nearin’ a week!
And why so long you ask?
Well, seems that in their thoroughness of seeing if or not I had a concussion, they discovered that during the fall I had damage, slight, to my kidney and my spleen and had internal bleeding!
As a matter of fact, as I write this at 9:31am on 11/13/2010 I two units of blood yesterday and I had 2 the day before. I wonder if'n I'll get any more...time will tell, huh.

OK, we’ll get to the prognosis/bottom line.

The spleen and bladder will heal themselves.
I broke the bone above my eye and below. The bone above will heal itself, but the bone below which I also broke may require some fixin’ up, but that decision won’t be made officially for a day or two but it appears likely when the swelling and blood pools (a.k.a. blackeye(s)), go abate a wee bit, they will make their final recommendation.
Soooooooooo…

Seems I’m gonna be here for another day or two because my primary physician, as far as the hospital is concerned, is my local Oncologist, is off on Fridays and told me on Thursday that I should expect to see the weekend from here. There is disagreement, as well as Drs. can disagree, whether I should spend the weekend…or not! The Pulminary doc assigned to me sez, “As far as we (who ever “we” is) are concerned I can go home, the Renal docs seem to be stuck on Sat. or Sun., the facial trauma doc doesn’t care…he just wants to see me in a week, ad a doc who stumbled into my room by accident thinks after the first of the year.

All I know is I look like a raccoon.