A Tale of Two Parties

I was at the Old Shillelagh in downtown Detroit recently for a friend's birthday party. I don't actually remember a whole lot about the party except that there were a lot of people there and some great Irish music. I don't even remember leaving the party.

The next thing that I do remember is feeling very sore as a man in surgical scrubs told me that I had been in an automobile accident and that I was at Oakwood Hospital.

I later learned from my brothers that on my way home from that party, my car was rear-ended by a drunk driver. According to the police accident report, this woman was traveling at a speed in excess of 100 miles per hour when she collided into me.

The aftermath of this is:
  • My car is totaled, which leaves me without transportation for the time being;
  • I have a lot of muscle soreness in my neck and shoulders, which the doctors tell me will clear up in a couple of days;
  • I have a persistent ringing in my right ear, which should also clear up on on its own eventually;
  • I also have several bruises on my torso that, strangely enough, match up perfectly with the size, shape and location of the seat belt I was wearing; and
  • I have at least some short-term memory loss.
I also got to experience the unique joy of spending all of Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day in a hospital. (For those who have never experienced it - trust me - it's not fun.)

It's both sad and ironic that I would always make such a practice of knowing my own limit when it came to drinking, and allowing my body time to detoxify before getting behind the wheel, only to get rear-ended by someone who obviously didn't care. (The hospital, as it turns out, performs a series of blood tests on all motor vehicle accident victims. My blood work confirmed that I had no alcohol or drugs in my system at the time of the accident.)

It's frustrating as all hell to have this happen to me.

Oh, well! The aftermath of this is something for me to work out with my doctors. (And a lawyer or two, perhaps.)

Anyway, being laid up for that long gave me a chance to think about a lot of things. I thought I'd share them with everyone, in no particular order.

I learned that I.V. needels are strategically placed to make sleeping in any position but on your back unbearable. I'm not sure whether this is deliberately planned or not. But I do know that it's true.

Clement Clarke Moore got the description of Santa Claus totally wrong in his famous poem. St. Nick, I've come to learn, looks more like a nurse - one who helped me score some really good cheese cake from the cafeteria on Christmas Eve.

Also, the interior of an M.R.I. machine is a lot more cramped than what one might see on House - or at least the ones at Oakwood are that way. The M.R.I. technician, by the way, is convinced that they use M.R.I.s way too often on that show - sometimes pretending that they reveal things in patients that the machine can't really detect.

One of the things that they did get right about M.R.I.s on House, however, came from the show's second season. L.L. Cool J's character had to undergo a M.R.I. that was extremely painful because he had prison tatoos that were done with a metal based ink. The powerful magnet in the M.R.I. really will try to pull the metal in that tatoo ink right out of a person's skin.

Reportedly, this is also a problem with elderly folks who got tatoos back in the WWII era. Tatoos back then also used a metalic ink.

It's also very weird how memories are a part of who we are as human beings.

I saw this print on the hallway wall as I was waiting for one of the dozen or so medical tests that they subjected me to. I didn't need my memory to know that I liked the painting, that was purely a matter of instinct.

There was enough of my memory intact to know that it was a rather famous painting; I might have eventually recalled that it one of Claude Monet's works, but I have to confess that I saw his signature.

In spite of everything that I could remember about this painting, I sat there in the hallway feeling frustrated that I couldn't remember of this painting. I was positive that I knew it a few days earlier and was quite perturbed that this fact had changed.

By the way, the painting is entitled Wild Poppies.

I wasn't able to remember that fact on my own. I had to look it up when I got home, simply because I was wondering about the name of it over and over in my head for ever since I saw that print in the hallway.

I also got to see several movies while I was confined to a hospital bed. I've come to the conclusion that colorized version of Miracle on 34th Street is little more than graffiti on a masterpiece.

Love Actually
is a really wonderful film that never got as many awards or nominations as it deserved. (It was adored in Europe, but basically ignored in the U.S.)

A Perfect Day, starring Rob Lowe on TNT, was suprisingly good. I was expecting something amazingly melodramatic, but it was actually a sweet, powerful drama.

Anyway, it's getting late. I should end this entry.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

Comments

farlane said…
Glad the voices are still there - car accidents can be a very scary thing!
Todd W said…
Hey Frank, sorry to hear about the accident. Hope you're feeling better!

Take care,
Todd
darling said…
Need a nurse? Im sure I can put together an outfit if not to entertain you... get the healing process hurried (wink)

Glad to have you around.

Patience :)

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