So I Fell on My Noggin...

What I look like two days post-ER.  I'll spare you the "before-stitches" photos. 

Yep, I fell on my head.   Or rather my left eyebrow.

One minute I was walking along the sidewalk near the El Cerrito Plaza BART station, on my way back from San Francisco, and the next minute my left temple was hitting the pavement hard.  No sense of tripping, no catching myself with my hands.  Ack!

I got out a mirror and saw a deep cut over my left eye where the lens of my glasses had sliced into my eyebrow (I know, the verb).   My first thought--truly--wasn't about scarring.  No, it was not.   It was, "Shit,  I'm going to have to go to the ER."

 View from my cubicle in the ER.   I wasn't wearing these shoes when I fell but some cute flats that don't fit right.  Vanity!

Jerry came home from work and drove me over to Alta Bates Hospital, and there we sat from 5:15-9:15, when I finally escaped with four stitches.

The wait:  long and boring.  After while, we swapped books--I read about endangered butterflies, and Jerry took on my  Barbara Pym novel:

Jerry reading Jane and Prudence

Me:  So what do you think of Barbara Pym's book?

Jerry:  Not much happens.

The actual thread

While the ER doc stitched me up, she told me that she was a Berkeley grad who went to Philadelphia for med school, then on to a residency at UCLA. She worries about her gray hairs and asked where I got my hair colored and how much it cost.  (I was aghast--dollar amounts in front of one's husband?!)  This to distract me from the distinct pattern of pricks I was feeling despite a local anesthetic.

Finally, with three pages of "Wound Instructions" and minus a steep $200 co-pay, we escaped into a very cool, breezy night.


Thanks to everyone who sent supportive messages on Facebook during this this mini-ordeal.  Very cheering!  Also, the follow-up e-mails.

I'm fine.  My knees are skinned ("abrasions," per doctor), and I have a black eye, but the cut ("laceration") doesn't hurt, and tomorrow I'll be allowed to get it wet so I can wash my hair.  My bangs will cover the scar.  Stitches out on Friday.

* * * * *

Today we went for a walk in Lucas Valley, in Marin County, and it felt good to be in one piece and able to walk a trail on a glorious spring day:

Miller Creek Watershed

My caregiver and ambulance driver

On the way home, we stopped at the corner where I fell, because I wanted to figure out what happened:

I think it must have been the raised seam in the middle of the photo that tripped me up, because I was walking up the street and suddenly landed in the smooth rectangle just beyond that seam.  The curb was recently modified to accommodate wheelchairs.