I was a Colorist. A hairstylist who specializes in coloring hair. I never cut hair in the salon, although I have been known to take the shears to my mom and grandma's hair, and of course the clippers to my dad and BH's hair. I attended one of the top cosmetology schools in the country, and apprenticed with one of the best salons in New York City. I chose to do color over hair cutting, because I felt a natural aptitude towards it. One of my instructors explained that doing hair is like being a great artist, and there are artists who prefer to paint rather than to sculpt... I preferred to paint.
That day, I wanted to sneak out of the salon a little early. I helped the other stylists finish up the closing duties, and walked up to the front desk. My pregnant coworker was with me and we asked if there was anything that we could help them with before we left for the day. They had two carafes of hot tea and one glass pitcher of water by the front door. I reached for the handles of the hot tea when my coworker asked if she could carry those, since the glass pitcher was too bulky for her baby belly to carry. Duh, I thought, kicking myself for ever suggesting that a pregnant chick carry a giant glass pitcher.
"Hope I don't pull a Shameka," I joked. This comment garnered eye rolls from my coworkers. Shameka, a stylist at our south location, had injured her finger when a glass vase exploded in her hands three weeks earlier. It was serious enough to require a trip to the Emergency Room and a bunch of stitches. She got phone duty for a couple of weeks much to her loyal clientele's dismay. I always felt a little guilty for her injury, since I was the one who asked her to clean the vase. It was some new idea that our boss had seen at a restaurant or bar downtown... a heavy duty clear glass vase, rectangular in shape, filled a quarter of the way with river rocks, then water to the brim, suspending a perfect orchid inside. It was really cool to look at, and I was one of its biggest fans... until the the third or fourth day, when the water turned gray, and the orchid was decaying into little brown fragments floating into space. I had a very important client about to sit in my chair when I caught sight of the grotesque vase. I asked a couple of the girls if they weren't busy to please find a way to clean out that water. Karma strike one.
I carried the pitcher to the break room, and set it on the edge of the sink. The aluminum top was always a bitch to take off; we figured out a combination of twisting and pulling, along with cramming your fingernails into the underside seemed to do the trick. My preggo coworker was laughing about something that someone said. Or was she telling me something funny that happened today? It's a bit of a blur. I reached in to grab the floating lemon slices before dumping the water. Did I take my hand out of the pitcher and throw the lemons into the trash can to my left? Or did the lemons end up covered in my blood in the sink?
The glass shattered. Imploded. Spontaneously combusted. I heard a clunk sound. I looked up and saw blood sprayed on the wall of the sink. I looked over at preggers. Was she bleeding? Did a shard of glass hit her? I certainly felt ok. I looked down at my chest, no glass. Then my arms. It was under a second that I saw the gash in my right wrist and subsequently grabbed it with my left hand and held on for dear life.
"Call 911! Call 911!" I shrieked to the esthetician standing behind me by the phone. She was already in motion and had EMS on the way by the time I realized this could be serious. "Hold your hand above your heart," she shouted at me, but my brain was in space somewhere, in some cloud floating above the scene, wondering if I was about to die. Preggo grabbed my arm and helped me sit down. I was babbling about something, maybe about Shameka, and how I was only kidding, and how I was sorry for the mess. The ambulance arrived in under two minutes.
The rest of that evening was cloudy to me. I remember the paramedic, Jeff, because he introduced himself to me one hundred times. He asked me to let go of my wrist, so he could put a tourniquet on, and I refused because I was afraid all the blood in my body would fly out at once and fill the room up like a flash flood, washing away all of my friends. I either fainted or slipped on water from the pitcher, requiring EMS to bring the gurney around back. Esthetician called BH for me from my cell phone. I think I climbed in the gurney, and told everyone that I'd call them later after I got my stitches.
The ambulance ride was actually kind of fun. Inside, I began to panic as my buddy Jeff was popping in my IV. He assured me that I wasn't in any real danger of bleeding to death; after all, if that were the case, wouldn't the lights be flashing and the siren be blaring? He asked me if I liked margaritas. "Are you buying?" Then he dripped in 100mcg of delicious Fentanyl on the rocks, no salt on the rim. This is where the fun started. We were laughing and joking, like we were sitting outside at Guerro's on South Congress. I compared myself to the poor guy from 127 hours, who had to cut off his own arm to survive. Hey it could be a lot worse, right? He told me how he could never be a heroin addict, because opiates didn't work on him. Bummer, I thought, not about the heroin. He talked about motorcycle accidents on I-35 and picking up crazy bums who would injure themselves to get free drugs and a warm bed for the night. I made a note to self: don't ever become a paramedic.
When we got to Brak, I had a welcoming committee of about thirty doctors and nurses. People were putting tubes in my nose, checking my blood pressure, taking my temperature, asking me to wiggle my fingers, giving me oxygen. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to wiggle my fingers. It just wasn't working. And where was BH? A nurse took off the tourniquet, and I could see the gaping hole where the tendons and nerves should be. I had trouble breathing. I just wanted to go home. The nurses started clearing out, and finally BH was allowed in the ER room. He asked the doctors what happened and I asked him to call my parents. One of the ER docs gave the details to my mom over the phone.
Someone warned me that I'd have to repeat myself over and over answering questions for countless forms and paperwork. Birthdate, Social, when did I eat last? Freebirds veggie burrito, 2:30 ish. Everyone laughed. Someone mentioned that Dr. Sharma would be there in 20 minutes, so to go ahead and prep me for surgery. I started panicking. I didn't realize that I was going into surgery... surely some stitches would work? A nurse asked me if I'd like to use my hand ever again. Ok, point taken. Someone mentioned a catheter, to which I promised I would not need, cross my heart. Two ladies came in to help me out of my clothes and into a chic open-backed hospital gown. I was thankful for the all-black dress code at work, so I couldn't see the amount of blood that was on my clothes as they went into my plastic possessions bag. I'll be staying at d'Hotel Brak this evening, and please have the concierge send up a bottle of champagne to my room.
One of the nurses told me that they called Dr. Sharma "McDreamy" and that I was so lucky to have him doing my plastic surgery. I breathed deep into some horrible mask and took a four hour nap.
When I woke up in recovery, I heard the "Rach 3" playing on the radio. I knew that piano concerto well, after watching the movie Shine many times (on VHS no less). I had a giant swiss cheese on my right arm. A nice soft spoken woman asked me some questions and had to hunt and peck the answers into the computer. She rolled my bed into the elevator, and up to the eighth floor. BH was waiting for me in my room, and the first thing I wanted to do was pee. A nurse helped me to the bathroom, and held my fluids bag up for me. I asked her if she could just hand me the toilet paper, I could do the rest. She then helped me to my bed, and tucked me in.
BH was bleary-eyed and exhausted. It was almost 1:30am. He had been waiting there for an hour, after waiting in the surgery waiting room for the four hour surgery. He told me that Dr. Sharma had used a microscope to reattach the nerves and tendons. It's called microsurgery. He waited with me for a while, and we were both getting hungry. The day before, we bought a couple of Tofurkey pizzas at the local co-op, and we had the genius idea for him to go home, let the dog out to pee, feed the cats, cook up a frozen pizza, stuff it in a Tupperware, and bring it along with some other snacks. I just wanted to try and sleep a bit. He left and came back around 5am. That pizza tasted so amazing, even if I could only eat a tiny slice.
The hospital is no place to sleep, apparently. Every twenty minutes or so, a nurse would come in and take my blood pressure and temperature. I had a call button attached to my bed for emergencies, such as needing more morphine or help getting to the bathroom. BH was curled up on a fold out cot in the darkest corner of the room, and sometimes I would lie awake just watching him as he tried desperately to get some sleep. Then the phone would ring, or a nurse would come in and wake him back up. Once a young man came into the room, either an intern or med student, to ask some questions. The kid had no bedside manner. He asked very personal questions about my pain and trauma, with the most monotone scripted voice I had ever heard. On a couple of occasions when I had to call the nurse with the button, a very irritated woman answered the call, and sounded as if I had interrupted a very important episode of Young and the Restless. Other than these two individuals, the hospital staff was very polite and accommodating, even about my veganism. The food they made for me was great, and the chef was very creative when making my meals.
Morning came, and Dr. Sharma came to my room to talk with us. He told me that the glass severed all of my tendons, my median nerve, ulnar nerve, and 25% of my radial nerve. I think he mentioned the ulnar artery as well, but I can't seem to remember; I'll have to take a look at my chart one of these days. He said that it would be at least nine months to a year before I would have full use of my hand back, and I would need Physical Therapy two or three times a week for that time. He said it would be a long road ahead of me, and there is no guarantee that my hand will ever return completely to normal. He set me up with my first physical therapy appointment on Monday, and a follow-up visit with him in six weeks.
We stayed at the hospital the rest of that day. My dad drove down to see me in the hospital and help BH pick up my car at work and bring it back home. I was discharged late that night, and my dad pushed my wheelchair down to the lobby while BH brought the car around. BH and I went home and slept. This must have been the last night that I truly slept. (Even as I write this, it's 3:30am and I'm exhausted, but I cannot sleep.)
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| Cheesy pose with giant cheese on on my arm. |
