Monday, August 30, 2010

Combat Pay

Warning: If you are not a fan of TV shows featuring the ER, you may want to skip this post.

I like reading medical mysteries. I like the TV dramas featuring life at big city hospitals. I am even OK with shows like Untold Stories of the ER (if there's nothing good on the Food Network.)

But I'm just not a big fan of starring in any ER dramas.

That didn't matter on Friday. I made my debut in a little series we like to call Farm Wife Visits the Stafford ER. Let's hope it was the first and last episode. I'm OK with this being a one-hit wonder.

The moral of this episode: Sometimes, farm wives could use combat pay.

It all began innocently enough. Randy was mowing (Yay for Randy! I hate to mow!) Unfortunately, the mower got stuck.

He came in and asked for help to get it out. We were unable to dislodge said mower by huffing and puffing and using sheer brute strength. (Hard to believe my uncanny strength was of no consequence in this endeavor.)

I suggested we get a rope and pull it out with the pickup. So we got a nylon strap and attached one end to the mower and one end to the pickup. I got on the mower to help guide it out of the predicament. Randy got into the pickup and pulled.

And then the problem occurred: The hook hopped out from the pickup and ricocheted into my shin, along with a glancing blow from said hook.

It hurt. It hurt a lot. Yes, there were tears involved.

I could walk, so I really didn't think it was broken. But Randy insisted we go to the ER to get an x-ray.

For the record, it was not broken. It is rather swollen and is developing a lovely patina. (Doesn't that sound better than it's kinda bluish yellow? Patina sounds more like a treasure on the Antiques Roadshow.)

We have several friends who work at the Stafford Hospital. I had just been there the day before to deliver a community calendar to one of my friends who just happens to do x-rays there. I told her Friday that I could have saved myself a trip and just delivered the calendar during my ER visit.

They told him that they had numbers to hand out to wives who came into the ER with bumps and bruises. I told them not to be too hard on him because he felt terrible about the whole escapade.

It could have been so much worse. The strap and hook could have hit me in the face. It could have broken more than just a little skin.

So my weekend was a little different than I'd planned. We didn't go to the volleyball and football scrimmage Friday night at Stafford High. I didn't do my normal hour of walking on Saturday. I spent quite a bit of time in the recliner with my leg up.

I love to read, and I didn't feel a bit guilty about sitting there and reading my book.

However, I do not advise this method for having a lazy weekend. Just a word to the wise.


It's hard to get a 3D image with a 2D photo. Like I said, I was lucky. My shin is a lot tougher than my head. (Well, at least in some ways!)

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