The 55-Dollar Shot

So we made it to Gilroy Gardens last night and it was mostly drizzling so I was all excited about finally being there.



As we entered I grabbed some shots and saw this beautiful scene.

So I decided to run and grab a photo of my family as they walked in. Except that I was wearing the wrong shoes and I was stupid and I slipped and fell. And the camera fell with me and the lens hit my face.



It all happened pretty quickly and since my running had prompted David to run Jake was trying to get him to stop and not looking at me at all. When he came over to see if I was ok, we both saw the blood dripping out of my nose. I’m told I was covered with it within seconds though I never got to see my face like that.



We waited around for the EMT to show up, all the while I cursed myself for being so stupid. Several times I told them that we should just go in and I was fine. But Jake insisted we wait. Finally the woman showed up, cleaned me up and said we needed to go to the hospital cause my cut was too deep and it was going to need stitches.



I had just told someone last week that I never had stitches in my life. Never.



We got in the car and drove around for a bit, trying to find the urgent care she gave us directions for and the woman at the Walgreens drive-through told us that it was closed so we then got on the road to find the Gilroy hospital. Halfway through, we decided to bail and just come back home so we could go to Stanford hospital. By now, it was already past Nathaniel’s bedtime. We called up the hospital and they said that I had 12 hours to get sutures so it was safe to take the extra 45 minutes to drive there.



When we got to the emergency room, the nurse looked at my nose and sent me to the extension which is a quieter, calmer portion of ER where less serious patients are sent. After several visits from hospital personnel, the resident showed up and looked at it. He said he might be able to just glue it. (Which made me happy, I am still nursing so I wasn’t keen on getting any drugs for the stitches. Not to mention my track record of not having any stitches.) We all waited for the attending to show up. Nathaniel was a champ the whole time.







The doctor came and decided she agreed and we could use dermabond. We were very concerned about any long-term scars since it’s on my nose but she assured there’s no difference between stitches and glue for that. So they cleaned my nose off really well with saline and went to get the stuff. I asked Jake to snap some photos while they were gone. I had still not seen what I looked like. Here’s the only one that came out relatively clear.







The resident came back, glued me up twice and put some small bandages on. The doctor came back and checked his work. And then the nurse came and gave me a tetanus shot (I hadn’t had one since I taught for Teach For America in 2002. And I guess you need to have had it in the last 5 years.) which made me bleed all over.



So at 8:15pm, we were finally done and could go back home. Everyone was exhausted and worn out from being on adrenalin for four hours. After having paid the $15 admissions fee for all three of us and the $10 parking fee, the above one is the only photo I have to show for the almost four hours we spent driving back and forth to Gilroy this weekend.



The $55 photo.