But it's only a flesh wound!

So, I didn't sleep much last night, stressy stuff, whatever. This morning, at work, I was fishing around for a tissue. Someone used up the last box so I went to get a box from the broom closet. There was a carton of Angel Soft (there's a joke here, I'm thinking) and I couldn't quite reach it so I resorted to my old short girl standby, I grabbed a pen and stuck it in the bottom to drag toward me. A split second of; "you know, it's not usually this heavy and then I hear sliding, metallic screeching and the next thing I know I've been bashed in the forehead and blood is dripping down.

I'm clutching this carton, stunned and trying to figure out where to put it, but then there's blood, so I need to stop it! So I fish around for a tissue box, get it open and grab a wad to press to the wound. I press hard, because I know that's what you do with this kind of injury. And somehow I manage to get the box back up onto the shelf (I have my priorities, apparently.) Finally, dripping blood everywhere, the wad of tissues pressed to my forehead, I get to a phone and call a manager; "uh, I have a bleeding head wound, can you come up?"

Everything else is kind of a blur, it's amazing how when you're covered in blood, people want to stop you and ask what's happened. Hey, let me get the cut cleaned, since the metal toilet paper holder was pretty dusty! I finally get into the bathroom (after being called out once by another concerned employee!) and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked a mess. There was blood dripping down my face, my glasses, my shirt was splattered (but black, so not so noticable, although the blood smell made me gag) and my hair was matted on one side.

You know those movies where the guy keeps fighting, cracking jokes, but his head is covered in blood? Yeah, that was me, I was riding high on adrenaline. Dammit, I wasn't going home, I'm fine, lemmee just get some ice on it. *sigh* Dumbass, your name is Lorraine. Several people (and I'm embarassed to admit it had to be several) told me to get it looked at, so, an hour or so after it happened and the shocky feeling was starting, I saw reason and decided to get *finger quotes* proper help.

It took a long time for the manager to come up with an address for me to go, which I took a taxi to get to, which was stupid since it turned out to be within walking distance. I didn't believe the address so I called the manager and she let me have the taxi driver take me to St Luke's emergency room. My mistake was walking through the door and talking to the people at the hospitality counter. I would have been home hours sooner. They sent me back to the other address, it was actually family care, except that they don't take walkins. My worker's comp insurance company sent me to the wrong place! And I had kept asking if I could go to the emergency room since I have a head wound, after all.

I have to say the lady in the family care was wonderful, she called around for me because she felt horrible for me. She didn't have to do anything once I found out I was in the wrong place. Nice nice lady. A bright point in the day. Which makes up for the taxi driver, who talked himself into a bigger tip, from a person with a knot on her head which was still bleeding, nice? No.

Nice were the security guards who'd given me a ride after the taxi driver left me. Nice was the nurse who gave me sympathy after 2 1/2 hours waiting in the emergency waiting area. And nice was the doctor who sped things up (including an X-ray) so I could get back to where I knew my husband was going to be picking me up. And nice was my best friend, texting to make sure I was OK when she didn't even know I'd had an accident.

And really cool was coming home to an email from Joshua Malina, one of the actors of Sports Night, wanting my address so he could mail me autographed DVDs (thanks again to atanvarne for sending me to his twitter.) I'm not sure this makes it a balanced day, but it wasn't boring, that's for sure!