It was going great.

The day actually moved pretty quickly, even with the hours of orientation, paperwork, videos, and 401k nitty-gritty.  They took me out to lunch and the rest of the afternoon was spent finishing up insurance applications, emergency contact info, and having my photo taken for my ID badge.

I had almost made it through.  Almost.

I was sitting in HR, signing my name to documents, when I excused myself to the restroom.  I made it out of our office and into the building’s lobby and then drunkenly stumbled to the couch.  The room was spinning so fast I couldn’t even walk straight.  I plopped on the edge of the couch and put my my head between my knees.  The ringing in my ears was so loud, I couldn’t hear anything except weird static noises like an AM radio in the middle of nowhere.  Slowly, the static faded and the room slowed to a gentle carousel ride.  I could see the bathroom door from where I was so I thought I’d just try to make it there.  After 5 steps from the couch, I couldn’t tell where I was going because the carousel ride turned into a roller coaster on steroids.

I heard a weird sound, like a pool ball being thrown on concrete, but I didn’t know where it was coming from.  I tried to move, but was stuck and couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t walk.  Then I realized that my nose was being pressed by something and my forehead felt really cold.  I opened my eyes to the swirled painted cement floor half an inch from my face.  I remember croaking, “Heeelllpppp.  I need help please.”  But no one was in the lobby or within hearing.  Blood dripped into my eyes and so I just put my head back down on the cement because it felt so cold and good.

In a blur, I managed to grab the two halves of my glasses and stumble into the bathroom.  I remember blood dripping from my face splattering onto the floor with every step, making a Hansel and Gretel path back to the scene of the face plant.  When I looked in the mirror inside the bathroom, I just saw blood everywhere, my bangs were matted to my forehead and blood was smeared all over my face.  I grabbed a paper towel, pressed it to my forehead, then half walked, half crawled to the nearest office door.  I’ll never forget the look on the lady’s face when I opened it and said, “Help me please.”

I sank to the cold cement floor and then things blurred together.  My supervisor, who is an RN, came running over and turned into an angel.  Every time I opened my eyes more people were there; the executive director, the administrator, mixed with people I barely remember meeting briefly that morning.  I tried to explain what had happened, but it sounded so bizarre even to my own ears.  Who passes out on their first day at work and face plants straight onto cement?!

The nurse pulled back my paper towel, quickly masked her first facial expression of shock (but I saw it), and then calmly told me that I would need to get stitches and would need to go to the ER.  She suggested having a plastic surgeon do the stitches since it was a 2-inch jagged laceration down the middle of my forehead.

The HR manager asked who she should call, which was almost comical because in all of the paperwork that we had been working on 15 minutes earlier, I had just finished my emergency contact list.  She called Kevin’s cell, but he didn’t answer because he was at work.  She came back and asked if there was another number for him.  I said, “Yes, call him at work.  It’s 356-…., um, I can’t remember the rest, but he works at MidWest One.”  She asked, “Is it 5800?”  “Yes,” I said, “Just ask them to transfer you to Kevin Crall.”  She left to call.

I felt suddenly sick to my stomach.  I said, “I think I’m going to throw up.”  Within seconds, someone had pushed an ice cream bucket under my mouth.  I proceeded to vomit everything that could have possibly been inside me.  I remember, between breaths, saying, “This is just so embarrassing.”  The administrator was holding my puke bucket for me (and he also later disposed of it) and my supervisor was sitting behind me rubbing my back.  After throwing up, I felt so much better.  Prior to that I had been so hot, but as soon as I threw up, I was convulsing with shivers.  My whole body was just shaking and my teeth were chattering so loudly, I actually remember saying, “I can’t hear anything but my teeth.”

The HR manager came back and said that Kevin was on his way, but since I had started vomited and then shaking beyond belief, it was executively determined that an ambulance needed to be called.  So Kevin was called again, for the third time, and told to just meet the ambulance at the ER.

I remember wanting to pull myself together and be coherent so I tried really hard to focus on details.  I memorized the first responders’ names (Nate and Jason) and told them very proudly that the date was December 6, 2010.  They put a neck brace on me and told me that I have a little neck.  I said, “Thanks, I guess.”  They put me on the board and strapped me down, but I was still so cold I couldn’t think, let alone feel my toes.  So they put me in a body bag (with my head sticking out) to transport me outside to the ambulance.  I remember when they lifted the board onto the gurney, it felt like I was flying.

Inside the ambulance, it was warm, but I still felt so cold.  It wasn’t until they hooked me up to oxygen, that my body calmed down from the shaking.  They poked my finger, took blood, put in an IV line, checked my eyes, blood pressure, and a hundred other things. I remember they said my blood pressure was 108 over 72 and I tucked that away in my brain, feeling so smug that I could remember numbers.  Later, I tried to memorize the serial number on the exam light in the ER, but I couldn’t get past the first three: T38.

When they lifted me off the gurney and onto the hospital bed, I was so concerned that they wouldn’t get their board or neck brace back.  They assured me it would be fine and not to worry about it.  They left and the nurse and doctor took over, checking my vitals, drawing blood, touching my spine and asking if it hurt (I said it felt good.), hooking me up for an EKG, wheeling me away for a CT scan, and trying to clean the blood off my face to find the actually wound.

After they determined that I didn’t have any spinal injuries, they finally, finally took me off that board and I told them the hospital bed was so comfortable “like clouds”.  I’m sure that made them worry about the CT results.  They kept the neck brace on for a while longer and I felt so horrible immobile.  I remember tears rolling back into my hair as I laid there looking at the ceiling and all I wanted was Kevin.  (He was there, but they had forgotten to get him.  He actually beat the ambulance there and had been in the waiting room the whole time!  When they checked the monitor, they said, “Oh, yeah, she’s been here for 47 minutes, come on back.”  Jerks.)

All of my tests came back just fine, no problems.  They decided to say that it was due to dehydration.  That’s the diagnosis they seem to give every time they can’t figure something out.  They started a saline drip and that set me into freezing mode again so they wrapped heated blankets behind me, on top of me, around me.  I looked almost like a mummy.  Then they went to work on my forehead trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

The numbing shot was the worst pain of my life.  I wanted to scream, but bit my lip instead until it bled too.  The medicine made my forehead feel like someone was holding a match to my skin.  After it kicked in though, glory be, all I could feel were some little pricks and pokes and the sutures being knotted together, eleven total for anyone who cares.  (I refused to tell the doctor that I could feel the pricks because then I knew he’d inject more numbing medicine and I’d rather have felt the slight pricking and tugging than go through the fire-feeling again.)

After that, it was all very…quick.  They took off the neck brace, had me move my neck (which I moved better than even a normal person should be able to, they said), and sit up.  Stage two was standing, which I mastered, then I had one last test, a urine test, and then, discharged!

Hallelujah!

I know now why people were staring at me as I left.

So the joke was that at least insurance kicks in on my first day because Calamity Jane here just couldn’t wait to put it to use.  I’ll need to go get another pair of glasses (thank you, vision insurance!) and have a heart monitor on for a few days, but I am back to work tomorrow, battle wounds and all.

I fell asleep last night after mumbling to Kevin, “Thank you for take caring of me.”  I knew that sounded wrong, but I didn’t have the energy to correct myself.

And now, lastly, after all of that worry about finding the perfect “first day” outfit, I shouldn’t have worried so much after all.  Seems like no one is going to remember me for that outfit anyway.