Pinkerton's Weblog

My Bob Dole Period (Part II)

I eventually do go to the emergency room of my nearest hospital Monday night, but it is packed to capacity. I am told it will be a four-hour wait, and am then shuffled in to meet a nurse before registration, presumably to weed out the throngs of adoring, completely healthy fans who simply like to visit emergency rooms at three in the morning to hang out with convalescing, lightly weeping broken people. Toronto General Hospital's ER, folks -- where the stars come out to shine!

I begin an intense mental chess match with the ER nurse. Basically, I want her to tell me it's alright if I simply go home, put a bit of ice on my arm, and come back the next morning -- thus allowing me to sleep in my bed all night instead of spending it awake and alone sitting in a waiting room with crazy-eyed people coughing strange coughs and speaking odd, vowel-free foreign dialects. She, of course, wants to commit to as little as possible, so I can't come back a week later with a hook for an arm and a lawsuit, pointing at her and yelling "THAT'S the one, Officer! She's the nurse who told me I was okay to go home -- and THEN MY ARM FELL OFF!"

We eventually reach a compromise and come up with our own private code, wherein a "no" means no, and a "Well, I can't tell you what to do, but..." followed by a slow trail-off means yes. Using this method, I am able to figure out that my elbow doesn't appear to be broken, as I can move my fingers. But then again, it might be broken, who's to say without x-rays? Broken or no, the upshot is that it won't get any more or less broken if I go home, keep it raised and on ice, and come back in the morning.

I do just that and am in and out of ER in under two hours. When I tell my doctor that I'd originally come in the night before, but left after I heard about the four hour wait, he leans in conspiratorially.

"I heard it was actually more like seven."

Jesus.

During my morning ER visit I meet the most violently crazy young man I have ever seen. His actions and screaming and wall-punchings deserve a blog post all in themselves, and so I won't go into detail on him except to assure you that he had profound mental illness and, being all of nineteen, was coupling that with an even profounder need to be intensely melodramatic and loud about said illness.

What bothered me more about my brief encounter with him (after ten minutes, when he realized he was about to be restrained by security and sedated, he ran off) was the young man's girlfriend, who said nothing the entire time. My heart ached for her -- clearly she'd had the longest night in the world taking care of this frothing lunatic. Her eyes were red from crying, her hands shaking with the stress. She was very attractive, and I had to wonder -- had he always been like this? Was this a recent development, and was she simply standing by her man? Did he have any idea of the misery he was putting her through?

I had no idea. In any event, it doesn't take long for me to turn the entire incident into one of my usual bouts of wallowing self-pity, when I realize that I am still brutally single and waiting in ER by myself -- while a raving, wild-eyed madman is escorted off the premises with a comely young blonde girlfriend.

There's evidently something I'm missing here.

I am told by a kindly ER doctor, in gratifying detail, exactly what he suspects is wrong -- that I have fractured my elbow in a very minor way, right in the ball that connects the joint. No cast is necessary, but I should keep it in a sling and move it as little as possible. I am also given instructions to go halfway across town Wednesday morning for an appointment with a specialist named Dr. Lau. Until then, he tells me, plenty of Tylenol and icepacks should do the trick.

I get back home and officially enter into my Bob Dole Period. With only one fully functional arm, I finally understand the daily trials a man with a shrivelled up hand must face. Take something simple like tying shoelaces, for instance -- I had to walk around all day Tuesday with untied shoes. There is no cadence or strut you can put into your walk that will counteract how retarded you look with two untied shoelaces. and a coat half on, half hanging off you. I was very close to simply asking someone to tie my shoes for me, but then realized I hadn't had a chance to shower yet, had wild hair, and very oddly buttoned clothes that I'd managed to dress myself in that morning before going to ER. In short, I looked violently insane. I decided to suffer my loose-fitting shoes in silence.

I've even taken to using my pants zipper and boxer shorts slit when peeing now, since it's a five minute chore to button my pants one-handed. I've always wondered what that stupid slit was for -- who doesn't have the time to unbutton and pull down? -- and now I know. The boxer shorts slit is there for Bob Dole and me.

For the majority of Tuesday I convalesce at home, watching the complete first, second and third seasons of the hit Canadian show The Trailer Park Boys that I'd rented on the way home. In more ideal conditions, I most likely would have pronounced the show average at best; given my state, however, I appreciate the company, and the TPB become familiar old friends by the third DVD.

As an irritating coda to all of this, Wednesday morning proves to be a complete dud. I have to wake up early to get ready -- try getting dressed one-handed before you judge -- and get a cab halfway across town for my 9:00 appointment with the specialist.

I've already missed a day's work and this will make it two. Coupled with the week of holidays I'd taken the week before, I've now been out of the office for some time, and I'm getting anxious to get back before I get fired. It's one thing to imagine moving now with a broken elbow -- how the FUCK am I going to pack stuff and move furniture one-fucking-handed? -- it'd be another to have to deal with all that while going on job interviews and hunting for work one-fucking-handed.

I get there at 9:00 prompt, wait a predictable hour in various waiting rooms, and have a brief Three's Companyesque misunderstanding when a boyfriend, whom I assume is a doctor, visits his girlfriend, asks how she's doing, then starts making out with her, all from behind a curtain that I view in silhouette.

I finally meet my specialist, who disinterestedly moves my arm this way and that, takes no x-rays, tells me I'll be fine but I my never be able to fully extend my arm again, and leaves.

That's it. I waste my whole morning getting down here, and my specialist takes no more than twenty seconds to examine me, wobbling my arm around a little and nodding.

I call out to him him as he moves to leave, realizing my appointment is over and eager for at least a little advice or something. Anything. I ask if I should be taking calcium pills. Calcium's good for bones, right?

"Nah, don't worry about it," he says, distracted momentarily by something more interesting (in this case, a bare wall).

"You're sure it isn't fractured? The doctor in ER said it was fractured after he took x-rays." I make a point of stressing the word x-rays. X-rays. As in, don't you think you should maybe take or look at some x-rays with your x-ray machine, so you can actually see the bones and make a specialist's decision with the help of that dandy new invention, the x-ray?

"Well, maybe it's fractured," my specialist shrugs. "Whether it is or isn't, though, I'd keep it in the sling and just let it heal."

"Keep my broken arm in a sling? Thanks for the advice, I was planning to backflip the 18 blocks home," I don't say. "In your specialist opinion, do you think I should take running leaps at walls with my broken arm? I was planning to and I wanted your advice on the matter," I don't add.

"Be sure to book a follow-up with the receptionist for next Friday!" he tells me before leaving. "So I can take another ten-second look at you and make another $600 for it!" he might well have added.

What a crock of horseshit. The ER doc was more help. I suppose I should take comfort, at least, that he wasn't concerned -- it would have admittedly been far worse if I'd commanded a whole morning's attention and he'd looked extremely worried the whole time --but all the same: it might have been nice if he'd looked at a fucking x-ray or two first.

On the cabride home I am once again asked why my arm is in a sling. I am getting tired of explaining to everyone who asks (and everyone asks) that I was simply an idiot who walked into traffic and got hit by a car, so I've since shortened it to a curt "I fell down and broke my elbow."

"Your elbow?" the cabbie exclaims. "Wow, that's the worst thing to break, man. That's a fucking joint there. That's huge trouble. I hope you got a specialist to look at it."

Some people know how to say exactly the right thing to perk somebody up. I decide not to tip him.

My Bob Dole Period (Part I)

It is Monday night. I get hit by a car.

I'd gone out for just a minute to pick up a few things. I'm waiting at the crosswalk of a busy main street in Toronto that I've crossed hundreds of times before. I am deep in thought about other things -- my upcoming move, getting back to work after the holidays -- and I see the light change, and for some reason I don't notice that I'm not looking at the light across from me but to my right -- the light telling oncoming traffic to come on down, the price is right to hit Pinkertons. For some reason I can't even begin to fathom I step out into oncoming traffic.

I should state for the record that I've never ever done this before. I'm not so scatterbrained that I confuse lights regularly. I can't even explain it -- I was just reading a book, and preoccupied with other thoughts, and for some reason my brain gave me the "All systems go!" sign.

As I walk out, my brain decides that maybe it hadn't thought out the previous statement -- that something nagging was wrong -- and sends a follow-up signal to check up on the first one. I look up and notice, for the first time, four lanes of furiously honking cars bearing down on me at full speed.

I run back to the curb as fast as I can, but as I'm being pulled from my thoughts back to reality I'm also getting the simultaneous message from my brain that, tragically, I am about to die. These cars are going quite fast and, though trying to brake, are simply too close. I'm going to get hit by a car and be killed.

The thought that goes through my head as the car hits me isn't a sudden epiphany, or a bright flash of light, or even my whole life flashing before my eyes -- it is simply blind panic and fear, and the knowledge that as I think this, I am dying.

I hit the hood of a braking car, bounce off of it, and land on my forearms in the alley. Briefly I am stunned -- if I were Patrick Swayze in Ghost, this would be the point where I actually die but don't realize I'm dead.

While I'm often told how much I resemble Swayze, tonight will sadly not be the night where I get my Ghost experience. I am jolted awake by car horns, and stand up out of the puddle bathed in mud and oil, waving the taxi cab that hit me through. I can't imagine a court in the world that'd want to convict him, since I was standing out in the middle of the street during a red light like an idiot. I wobble a bit. My body is flooded to bursting with pain-killing endorphins, and I am tense like a jungle cat about to pounce. Actually, maybe I'm flattering myself a bit here. More aptly, I am tense like jungle cat with an intensely surprised look on its face, having just gotten hit by a taxi.

The only thing I remember thinking of, oddly, is the Dustin Hoffman character from Midnight Cowboy, and him banging on the taxi hood saying "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!" And me wishing he was there.

Some brave Samaritan actually comes up to ascertain if I'm alright. Miraculously... I am. I barely hurt at all. I am so emboldened, in fact, simply to be alive, that I almost skip home. I feel a bit achey here and there of course, but otherwise I'm fine. The fact that five British pints of adrenaline were released upon impact does not register with me as a contributing factor. All I know is I got hit by a car and stood back up from it.

Three hours later, of course, my "kind of achey" arm turns into a full-blown "this fucking hurts" arm. At midnight, I begin to debate going to the emergency room, which I realize will mean a six hour time investment and no sleep.