The Past, Remembered
Here's an interesting little anecdote from my past (I know, I know, you're saying "I'll be the judge of that"). It has to do with my adventures a Naval hospital.
About 15 years ago, I was playing basketball at the Navy gym in Newport, Rhode Island. I had just recently moved back from attending high school in Athens Greece, and I had moved in with my brother. We were playing pickup 5-on-5 basketball, and had been going at it for a while - probably close to 3 hours. These types of marathon basketball sessions inevitably lead to some pretty sloppy play late in the day, and this day wasn't any exception. We were late in a game, and the other team had a steal and a two on none breakaway, with me being the closest player on my team trailing the play. For whatever reason (I still don't know to this day), I decided that I wasn't going to give up an easy layup, so I caught up with the guy with the basketball, who should have passed it to his teammate for the easy layup. Instead, he gave me a pretty good fake to his right. When I dodged that way, he brought the ball back across his (and my body) to his left. We were close enough to each other that he clipped me over my right eye with his right elbow. I went down like a fairly large sack of hammers with a large cut along the length of my right eyebrow.
If you've ever had a cut on your forehead, you'll know that it bleeds...ALOT. There are lots of blood vessels right there, and the skin is really thin. As I lay there, bleeding all over the court, my brother and friends ran up to me with a towel, which I pressed against the cut, hoping it would stop the bleeding - it didn't. My brother later told me that it looked from a distance like my eye had exploded when I got hit...I still have shivers about that thought...
At this point, my brother drove me to the Navy hospital which was only about 3 minutes away on the base. By the time I got through the emergency room admission procedures, the cut itself had stopped bleeding. I was expecting that they would throw a couple of stitches in there, and I'd be on my way, but I was wrong. They told me that since I had taken a blow to the head near the eye socket, they would have to X-ray it to make sure I hadn't fractured anything. The problem with this is that nothing ever really gets done quickly in a Navy hospital. I found myself waiting in the hallway with my brother and my friend while they prepped the X-Ray machine (whatever that entails), which took about 30 minutes. During this wait I had the opportunity to go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror...the cut was pretty bad, and the skin had parted far enough so that I could see my skull. Being 18 years old, I made sure to touch my skull with my finger so that I would have a cool anecdote at a party that I was going to that night, but that's not the worst part of the story.
The X-Ray procedure was pretty straight-forward. They pressed my face against a screen at four different angles and took a picture of each angle. After the X-Rays were taken, I went back out to sit in the hallway and wait for them to be developed. About 2 minutes later, the X-Ray technician came out of the room and told me: "I'm sorry to tell you this, but we forgot to load the film in the machine...we're gonna have to take the X-Rays again."
I was pretty groggy from the blow that I had taken, but I went back in and went through the four positions again, each time having a picture taken. When they were done, I went back out in the hallway to wait for them to be developed. About 15 minutes later, the same technician came out and said: "You're not gonna believe this, but two of the pictures didn't come out...we're gonna have to do those two again."
I was still groggy, but not so much that I didn't notice the heavy lead apron he was still wearing. I asked him: "How safe is it to have 10 X-Rays staight to the head in a matter of 20 minutes?" He didn't seem too worried about it, so I went back in and had the other two pictures retaken.
Like I said, this was 15 years or so ago, and in the meantime, I've gone on to get a B.A. in History, an M.S. in General Secondary Education and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership, but if you notice anything odd about my posts, you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...(sorry got caught in a loop)
Here's an interesting little anecdote from my past (I know, I know, you're saying "I'll be the judge of that"). It has to do with my adventures a Naval hospital.
About 15 years ago, I was playing basketball at the Navy gym in Newport, Rhode Island. I had just recently moved back from attending high school in Athens Greece, and I had moved in with my brother. We were playing pickup 5-on-5 basketball, and had been going at it for a while - probably close to 3 hours. These types of marathon basketball sessions inevitably lead to some pretty sloppy play late in the day, and this day wasn't any exception. We were late in a game, and the other team had a steal and a two on none breakaway, with me being the closest player on my team trailing the play. For whatever reason (I still don't know to this day), I decided that I wasn't going to give up an easy layup, so I caught up with the guy with the basketball, who should have passed it to his teammate for the easy layup. Instead, he gave me a pretty good fake to his right. When I dodged that way, he brought the ball back across his (and my body) to his left. We were close enough to each other that he clipped me over my right eye with his right elbow. I went down like a fairly large sack of hammers with a large cut along the length of my right eyebrow.
If you've ever had a cut on your forehead, you'll know that it bleeds...ALOT. There are lots of blood vessels right there, and the skin is really thin. As I lay there, bleeding all over the court, my brother and friends ran up to me with a towel, which I pressed against the cut, hoping it would stop the bleeding - it didn't. My brother later told me that it looked from a distance like my eye had exploded when I got hit...I still have shivers about that thought...
At this point, my brother drove me to the Navy hospital which was only about 3 minutes away on the base. By the time I got through the emergency room admission procedures, the cut itself had stopped bleeding. I was expecting that they would throw a couple of stitches in there, and I'd be on my way, but I was wrong. They told me that since I had taken a blow to the head near the eye socket, they would have to X-ray it to make sure I hadn't fractured anything. The problem with this is that nothing ever really gets done quickly in a Navy hospital. I found myself waiting in the hallway with my brother and my friend while they prepped the X-Ray machine (whatever that entails), which took about 30 minutes. During this wait I had the opportunity to go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror...the cut was pretty bad, and the skin had parted far enough so that I could see my skull. Being 18 years old, I made sure to touch my skull with my finger so that I would have a cool anecdote at a party that I was going to that night, but that's not the worst part of the story.
The X-Ray procedure was pretty straight-forward. They pressed my face against a screen at four different angles and took a picture of each angle. After the X-Rays were taken, I went back out to sit in the hallway and wait for them to be developed. About 2 minutes later, the X-Ray technician came out of the room and told me: "I'm sorry to tell you this, but we forgot to load the film in the machine...we're gonna have to take the X-Rays again."
I was pretty groggy from the blow that I had taken, but I went back in and went through the four positions again, each time having a picture taken. When they were done, I went back out in the hallway to wait for them to be developed. About 15 minutes later, the same technician came out and said: "You're not gonna believe this, but two of the pictures didn't come out...we're gonna have to do those two again."
I was still groggy, but not so much that I didn't notice the heavy lead apron he was still wearing. I asked him: "How safe is it to have 10 X-Rays staight to the head in a matter of 20 minutes?" He didn't seem too worried about it, so I went back in and had the other two pictures retaken.
Like I said, this was 15 years or so ago, and in the meantime, I've gone on to get a B.A. in History, an M.S. in General Secondary Education and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership, but if you notice anything odd about my posts, you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...you'll understand why...(sorry got caught in a loop)
1 Comments:
the education background was interesting and the ending funny... the story just makes me shake my head at the things boys do! :)
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