We arrived at the emergency room and there was no wait. I checked in and struggled to fill out paperwork with one eye. They led me into a room and proceeded to clean me up as best as they can. I was a mess! (warning: graphic picture) The nurse told me to open my eye. I tried. She then told me again, firmly. I replied "to me this is open." She then pried my eye open with her fingers. Lovely. She then told me to sit up. I tried. "Sit up straight!" "You mean I'm not?" I weakly replied. I wasn't getting much sympathy here. She then led me into the hallway so do they could test my vision. I could see - barely. "Well at least you can see." I would hear that statement many, many times in the days to come. She led me back into the room to wait for the doctor.

My wife showed up and peered at me calmly. "Does it hurt?" she asked. "Yes, quite a bit" I replied. The doctor came in and pried my eye open again to examine me. "Well you have a nice cut, but your eye seems ok. I'm going to glue that cut closed. We don't have an opthamologist here, so I'm calling a friend of mine to come in to look at you. It's going to take him awhile to get here though." He then cleaned up around the cut some more. He started to glue the cut, and I was overwhelmed by the stinging sensation. "Ow shit!" I gritted through my teeth. "Oh is it still stinging?" he asked. "Still? You never said it would" I thought bitterly but the thought only came out as a grunt.

They had offered my Vicodin for the pain but I declined - I just don't get along with it. I settled for Tynelol. I spent the next few hours laying there wishing I was somewhere else, and wishing I could sleep. I was miserable.

Dr. Hetland showed up and apologized for the delay. He was a kind older gentleman. He did some basic checks on me, including the "how many fingers am I holding up?" "Ten" I replied. He was silent for a moment then replied "I'm only holding up one hand." It was the first time in my life I had ever gotten that question wrong. I asked him if he thought there was a possibility that I had actually fractured something. He paused to consider this, and said "well it's too bad they anesthized you or I could do another test." "Anesthize me? They didn't anesthized me" I replied. He seemed shocked. "They didn't? Well then I can do the test." He grabbed a tissue and twisted the end into a point. He then ran the point under my eye down along my nose. "Do you feel that?" he asked. Now I was shocked. "No I don't." "Hmmm that's not good. There's a nerve that runs along the bottom of your orbital. When you have an orbital fracture that nerve usually gets damaged. We'll need to get a CT scan done." We then talked about a follow up visit. The problem was that I lived on the other side of the bay. "I want the doctor that has experience" I decided. He smiled, "you mean older." I shrugged. "This is my eye - I want someone who knows what they are doing."

Dr. Hetland returned to his office while I waited for the CT scans. Finally they came to collect me and carted me off in a wheelchair. The scans were much easier than a MRI. Though I did have to hang my head off the end of the table so my chin was pointing at the ceiling for one pass. They finished and I returned to the ER.

I had been in the ER for more that 6 hours. After reviewing the scans, the doctor said it looked like I had a "minor fracture." And then added "you're probably in a lot of pain." Yeah ...

It was the beginning of a long painful odyssey and I would soon discover that there was nothing "minor" about my injury.

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Published: (2005-10-20 15:38:09.0)