Ed falls off the roof
OK, so I fell off the roof. Yes, you can stop laughing now. I understand. Someone falling off a roof is just such a classic imbecile maneuver, you cannot help but laugh at it. "Boy so dumb he fell off the roof!"
Anyways, yesterday afternoon I was up on the roof. There is a little overhang on my rear door leading from the roman tub room to the outdoor shower. Gypsies or rednecks had built it and they had moronically used particle board. Over the years the particle board had rotten away. I decided I wanted to replace it with one big sheet of that touch roofing material they sell at lowes.
So I shinnied up the roof to use a crowbar to smack out the old wood. Now, I do not have a proper ladder to get onto the roof. I just have one of those little folds out stepladder usually used for painting rooms. When I step on the very top most step (conveniently labeled NOT A STEP) the lip of the roof is about waist height. So I just grab it and shinny on up. Getting down is harder, although I have done it several times before. I slowly lower myself down form the roof until my foot hits the NOT A STEP and once I get my balance I can just clamber down.
I clearly recall myself thinking 'wow, this is not safe at all' just before the ladder tipped sideways and I suddenly found myself at the unforgiving mercy of gravity. It did not feel like I hit the ground, it felt like the ground flew up and slammed into me. When it hit me I saw a brilliant white flash of light and my brain produced a single word: shit.
I lay there for a moment and to my horror I realized I could not breath. I have not had the breath knocked out of me since I was a kid in Tennessee and I fell off a wall. I tried breathing out... nothing happened, I tried breathing in, nothing happened. Finally, getting desperate, I groaned. It worked, air escaped my lungs, however the noise I made was pretty scary to me. It was not my voice; it was the voice of some dying 'thing'. I was both alarmed and shamed to hear it coming from me.
By that time I could move a little bit. Alan who had been working on the other side of the house wandered over, looked at me lying in the dirt, disappeared and reappeared with a digital camera in his hand. Although I would have done the same thing, I started yelling at him. He put the camera away and helped me up.
I went into the house and tried to assert my situation. I hurt... I had landed on my left side and my hip and ribcage was killing me. Finally I decided I had better go to the hospital and have it checked out. It would suck if I had some sort of internal bleeding and died during the night when I could have been easily saved. Alan agreed to drive me to the hospital, which thankfully is right down the road.
At the point the only way I could move was in a slow shuffle. Bending over or turning or sitting caused a bright flower of pain to blossom up all over my left side. When I walked into the emergency room the few patrons in there eyed me like a zombie as I shuffled in.
After a short wait I got shown into the little room where they get your info. I was not wearing my hearing aid and I was kicking myself for not getting it. Sure enough the first nurse to see me was some little Asian lady I could barely understand. She also had a very bad attitude which I suppose is understandable if you work in the emergency room. She ended up asking me questions by rotating her chair to me and shouting loud and slow 'WHAT..IS..YOUR..ADDRESS!'. It was a bit humiliating, but it had to be done.
When we were finished she had me shuffle down the hall until I got to a little waiting room. She then took a little hospital smock and said 'put this one' and left. I peered down at the ratty little rag in disgust. I had never before had to wear a hospital smock, and I had been doing a pretty good job of getting through my life without one. Letting out a sigh, I painfully started to disrobe.
Just the other day I was having a discussion with some people about having an accident and making sure you had clean underwear. About a year ago I had been shopping for underwear (I normally wear boxer briefs) when I accidentally bought the wrong kind. They were not only briefs, they were a pansy little blue color and a size too small to boot. When I put it on it looks like I am wearing some gaudy South American Speedo. It was also quiet raggedy at this point in time. All the others that had come in that package had long ago found their way into the rag bag. Since it was the weekend and I had not done laundry, this was the only clean thing I had. Deciding I was not going to enter any strip poker contest that day, I had worn them.
So, that is the underwear I was wearing. I squeezed into the smock that was naturally too small that gave a clear view of my ridicules little underwear. At that point I was still in too much pain to care.
After a while a big bald male nurse who looked like he would be more comfortable riding a Harley down to the biker bar came in and hooked up an IV to me. This was another first for me. He then gave me some sort of pain medicine. I do not know what it is but it made my head spin and my speech slur and did not do a damn thing about the pain.
When he was finishing up a female nurse that looked like some communist-era soviet Olympic contestant came in. I explained to her I was a big hard of hearing. "That's OK!" she shouted cheerfully. "I have a big mouth! And big arms and a...BIG BUTT!" With that last statement she grinned down alarmingly at me. Between being startled by the statement and my head swimming form the drug, all I could do was gape back at her.
Eventually she wheeled me down to the x-ray room. I grunted and moaned and groan and I transferred my bulk from one table to the other. I have honestly never been in pain like this before. It sucked. On top of it the dug the other nurse had given me was causing me to have a serious case of cotton-mouth.
After the x-rays they brought in a container of OJ for me to drink. It also contained some radio-opaque element so they could put me through the MRI. Thirsty, I greedily drank it down. After a while a little Asian man showed up to take me to the MRI. I could hear him grunt and 'oof' as he wheeled my bulk down the hallway.
At this point in the night every person I had spoken to said to me 'What were you doing on the roof??' as if I had been up there doing some decidedly moronic act, like dancing with a lampshade on my head. This guy asked me as well. This time I said 'I was waving down a UFO'. He nodded uncommittedly at me as if he heard such things all the time. Once again I grunted and moaned and groan as I transferred myself to the MRI table. It's basically a big donut that you pass your body through. Above your head staring down at you is a little green face. It actually looked almost just like a character named 'stick-boy' from a series of bawdy underground comics I had read once. It would light up when you were supposed to hold your breath. After a couple of passes I began to dislike it.
After my scan (which I was disappointed I did not get to see) they wheeled me back to my little room. At this point Alan, who had been getting sick of waiting in the other room, wandered it. He stepped in and peered down at me wearing that stupid little smock and an IV in my arm. I was highly embarrassed. It reminded me of when I was at a friends apartment a few weeks ago and we were flipping channels when it hit the discovery channel and showed some huge fat guy being pushed onto a table by a couple of nurses. At the time I saw I and started laughing until tears came. Karma is a bitch.
Since my house was only a few miles away Alan decided to simply walk home. I felt better about that because I had felt bad about him sitting in the waiting room while I was on a table cruising on a drug induced magic carpet ride.
After he left the big biker nurse came in and handed me a plastic container. 'Pee in this' he instructed, and then walked away. Sigh. I could hardly move and getting myself off that table and jamming myself in a corner with some feeble sense of modesty I peed into the container. I thought I did a good job, too. Did not spill a single drop.
I then waited. A long time. I faded in and out of consciousness, more because it was late at night rather than the drug they had given me. Every now and then I would open my eyes and peer at the urine container that no one had yet come to retrieve. Eventually the doctor came in. I was, apparently, fine. "you are a very lucky man!" he told me. I had not broken any bones and I had not ruptured any organs. I credit that to all the milk I drink. I have big strong bones and I'm as tough as old shoe leather. I was very relived, however. When I had been lying on the table I was thinking horrid thoughts like I might have a crushed hip or something.
Years ago I owned a crappy chevette that I used to drive around. The original owner had been a doctor, and when the shift stick had broke he had wired on an artificial human hip bone. I used to drive that car and switch gears with that hipbone, thinking how much it would suck if I had to have one.
I was honestly surprised nothing had been broken. The doctor warned me that I might actually have a fractured rib that the x-ray could not see. I hope that is not the case. With that they discharged me and I hobbled home.
I spent a horrid night in pain. Laying down or getting up from the bed was a horrid chore, sending lances of hot pain all down my side. However, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to move. If nothing was broken then there was not much that I could damage. I woke up in the middle of the night to pee. It took me almost 15 minutes to get out of bed and I almost did not make it to the toilet. It was mostly a miserable sleepless night.
The next morning I was desperate for relief and really wanted the pain pills I had gotten a prescription for. The only walking stick I had was a big stick I have with a skull on top of it with big ruby eyes. Using this I hobbled to my truck. Once In the truck I could drive it ok. So I went on down to the pharmacy, when was supposed to open at 10.
At this point I was pretty disgusting. I had not had a shower that day. My hair was sticking up and I felt crusty. My big skull-pole went TAP TAP TAP on the clean CVS floor, making people in the store gawk at me. I probably looked like a voodoo witchdoctor.
The pharmacy opened at 10, but the pharmacist did not actually show up and open it until 11. I spend about an hour sitting on a little plastic cvs chair, grunting in pain and feeling dirty and sweaty. After a while I finally got my pain pills and hobbled home. They are just now staring to kick in and the relief is overwhelming.
I am pretty pissed, however, because due to my stupidity I have basically wasted a weekend full of things I wanted to get done. On top of that I have to waste another vacation day at work staying home to recover. When I get a chance, I am buying a new latter.
And thus is the tale of Ed falling off the roof.
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