I fought the law (of gravity) and the law won.

[GH85Carrera]

Gravity always wins, 100% of the time.

Sunday evening, my wife and I were watching a rather old movie, War Games.

About half way through I wanted to get an apple, as we all know, and Apple a day keeps the doctor away. So I stood up from the rather low couch, and felt just a little dizzy but walked to the kitchen, around the main cabinet towards the fridge, and the next thing I know is I am on my hands and knees tying to get up, but my head hurts, and there is a LOT of blood. My wife came in and and started cleaning up the blood on the floor, and hands me a wet towel to put on my forehead. It takes a minute to gather my senses, and stand up. With blood on my clothes, she said I had to change clothes, and got me a red t-shirt, and new shorts. It is a hard to change clothes while holding a towel to you head.



She drove the three miles to the local hospital and emergency room. They saw me holding a bloody towel to my forehead, and took me right to the treatment room. No sign in, no waiting, boom sit on the gurney - bed. They take a look at the cut, and say you need stitches, and we have a long list of things we need to test for.

They knew I was a medicare patient, and they were ready to get some Medicare money. So in goes an IV port, a blood test is drawn, eventually they put in 5 stitches. And they admit me to the hospital for an overnight stay.

They hang a bag of saline, so I can't bend my left arm much or the IV machine beeps at me. Finally at 11:00 PM they give me two regular Tylenol for my headache, and they let me have water. They want a pee test, and a second round of blood for a second blood test.

Ultra sound tests on Monday on my heart, and a third EKG. The doctor came in and said they have a list of about ten things to test for for a person passing out, and they go from just minor things to life or death. They want to eliminate the bad pookie things.

I was released at 5:00 PM on Monday, and felt like fine.



By the time we got home on Monday the bruising has increased. The weird thing is my wrists, knees and other body parts normally injured when falling face first on a Porcelain tile floor are fine. Only this morning did I find a small bruise on my left hip.

This morning when I woke up, I could just struggle to open my left eye.


I need Rocky's cut man to cut me. Yo, Adrien!

I put ice on my eye, and it is better. Likly mostly from gravity getting the blood to drain down.

In the end, they said my sodium and magnesium was low, and they gave me a bag of magnesium, and said to put more salt on my food. Yuck, but I will.

I have an appointment a week from today with my regular internist physician for my annual physical anyway, so they will take out the stitches, and run more tests likely.

So if you are feeling dizzy when you first stand up, pay attention and don't ignore it. This is the first time in my life I have ever passed out, or been unconscious without anesthesia.

It sucks to get old. I remember the good ol days of youth and I just bounced, and was unhurt. I have to grow older, but I refuse to grow up!

[herr_oberst]

Yikes! What'd your head smack into to cause that big ol' slash?

Feel better soon!

[Crowbob]

It sucks more not to get old.

[Skip Newsom]

Ouch!
Yikes!
Hope you heal quickly Glen, hope that's not a thing that happens again.
It is strange to have new not so fun thing start cropping up as I age...
so far feeling faint is rare for me, usually low on hydration, food or just super tired seem to trigger it.

Spot on about paying attention to it, falling sucks more and more.

[ltusler]

Getting old ain't for pussys.

[id10t]

Chicks dig scars and pain is only temporary


Just need a better back story

[masraum]

Glad you're OK, Glenn. I'd have probably headed to one of those "emergency clinics" vs hospital. But glad that you're OK and it was relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

Originally Posted by Crowbob

It sucks more not to get old.

Absolutely!

Originally Posted by ltusler

Getting old ain't for pussys.

LOL!

OK, old fella, for your next B-day or Christmas...

[hcoles]

Yep, happened to me about 3 years ago. Stood up from the couch - lights went out.
Woke up with wife slapping me. I fell straight back hitting my head on the carpet. After some scans/etc. determine no permanent damage. Caused partly by prostate drugs - that's resolved now and blood pressure is steady.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by id10t

Chicks dig scars and pain is only temporary


Just need a better back story

We drove past two of the "doc in a box" type places. No cars and no lights on, and they were closed on a Sunday evening.

The hospital was a good call.

My only other real scar is on my right hip area from my hip replacement, and women tend to run screaming when I drop my shorts, and moon then to show them that scar. This one will likely show some scarring after all the healing is done.

I had an appointment to get my haircut from a chick that has cut my hair for over 30 years. I deliberately wore my baseball cap, and sunglasses in. I took them off after she turned around to get the apron. It was a great reaction of OMG, what did you do.

Just a biker gang harassing a family of four, and I had to play Chuck Norris and whip them for the wimpy man. She replied, no what happened to your face! I don't think she believed me.

[911 Rod]

Ouch!
Did you finish the movie?

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

Ouch!
Did you finish the movie?

Not for 24 hours. We finished it last night.

It is funny to see him hook his home phone into an acoustic coupler. They peaked at 300 baud, but most were only 150 baud.

I had a 300 baud modem, and I could comfortably read the text as it slowly came down, it did not fill up the display instantly like his did. The folks at NORAD told the move folks not just no, but hell no, you can't come in and look around, so the movie folks just made it all up. Those large displays simply did not exist back then.

The real NORAD had 1950s tube based mainframes running it. My dad toured it, and said they did have a printer they had nicknamed the whomper, because it was a dot matrix printer that printed a page at a time, and would print out the data in long piles of dot matrix paper a page at a time, and it made a whomp whomp sound as it printed.

[Seahawk]

We all know what really happened.

Glen and his lovely wife were watching, 'Sully' (the movie) and he got a little lippy:



Glad you are well, Glen.

As a friend of mine said, if I knew I was going to live this long I'd have taken worse care of myself...

[GH85Carrera]

Actually I told Mike Tyson he was just an old washed up has been and a total wimp with no punching power left.

[vash]

No CT scan?

[wdfifteen]

Glad you're OK. You must have really pissed her off!

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by vash

No CT scan?

Yea, they did a CT scan as well. My brain was really in there.

Funny thing is about 30 years ago, at that same hospital I had a CAT scan ordered by my ENT to look at my sinuses. Back then they strapped me to the table, to prevent me from moving. The machine made a lot of noise and would stop, and then move be forward just a tiny amount, I guess about a 1/4 inch, and then scan again, and that went on for a dozen times or more.

This one, just lay back, a cradle for my head, and after the CT scanner had spun up and was ready, in I went, and in about a second, done. I mentioned it to the tech, and he said back then it was one scan per second. Now it does 256 scans per second. A bit of an upgrade.

[Rusty Heap]

[GH85Carrera]

The worst part of the entire ordeal, was the hospital room. It was a nice private room, and very modern. BUT, the dang bed was designed for people under 5'6" I think. With the back raised up, to keep my head elevated, as I was told to do, it put my butt right at the bend in the bed. No way to scoot back anymore. I could not straighten my legs, so my knees were bent the entire time. If I flattened the bed, I could scooch back and straighten my legs, but it made my head throb.

With the dang IV setup up, I had to hold my left arm fairly straight. If I bent my arm, the alarm went off. It was not just a gravity fed IV, it had a very noisy pump, and almost sure, it administered a set dose every 10 seconds. I could hear a light drumming, like a distant exhaust leak but muffled, and about every 10 seconds a very mechanical, cycling of a line pump, all night long. I only got a few hours of sleep, and my room was just a few feet from the nursing station. They talked and laughed and made a lot of noise.

The patient in the room next to mine was a real moaner, and would start moaning like he was tortured, and then yell for pain meds. Of course, I have zero idea what was wrong, just that he was in worse shape than I was.

I hearty recommend avoiding hospitals! It was where I needed to be, but I hated it all.

They did have pretty good food.

[speeder]

As far as gravity is concerned, it doesn't sound like you put up much of a fight. Get well soon and be careful out there, people.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by speeder

As far as gravity is concerned, it doesn't sound like you put up much of a fight. Get well soon and be careful out there, people.

Yea, I did not fight back much I guess. I am still amazed I have no bruises on my knees, elbows, arms or shoulders. Just me face.