By the Way
If ever you ask me what happened this week, I'm going to deny that the week so much as existed. It has been THAT kind of week. I'd rather erase it than try to find the joy because YOU GUYS.
Beware: Blood and gore ahead. If that sort of thing eeks you out, run. Run fast. Run faster if teeth and blood and gore eek you out as much as they do me. I wish I could run from it.
Still here? YOU WERE WARNED.
So. I went to Portland this week. It was a work trip for a Big Company conference and I didn't really want to go, but it's an honor to be invited blah, blah, blah. I packed up a little suitcase of professional clothes and jumped on a plane on Sunday. And then Monday came, and it all came crashing down.
I mean, I came crashing down.
The thing is, I can't stand sitting around all day. It makes me loopy and antsy and generally miserable, so whenever I spend a day sitting around, I recover by going for a walk. I have done it for as long as I can remember and it doesn't matter where I am. I do it in every city that I travel to in pretty much any circumstances. Portland was no exception and there really was no reason it should be. I was staying at a fancy hotel that happened to be across the street from a Taco Bell, Macy's, Chipotle, and Target. It was THAT kind of neighborhood. Definitely a neighborhood that you can walk in.
For the record, my phone was in my pocket. I was wearing perfectly sensible shoes. I was dressed in nice jeans and a blazer, so I can't blame the clothes. There was absolutely no reason that it should have happened, but at about 9:30 at night, I managed to trip on an uneven sidewalk. If there had been anyone around, they would have seen me go from a proper upright 90° to flat on my face like *that.* There was no stumbling or flailing or anything. I just went BAM. FACEPLANT.
Literally.
I landed right smack on my face. On two teeth, in fact. Judging by the lack of scratches on my knees, I never stood a chance. My face took all of the blow.
I knew immediately it was a bad night. I spit out a few fragments of teeth, and then realized that another one was still in my mouth, but not where it belonged. It was pushed back a good 1/4" from its home. By the way, it turns out that not having a tooth is preferable to having a tooth where it doesn't belong.
So. I definitely had a problem. Nothing really hurt at that point, though, so I wasn't sure how bad the problem was. Thus, I walked back to the hotel and went into the restroom in the lobby to assess the damage. I looked in the mirror ... and immediately summoned a Lyft so I could go to the Emergency Room.
Hey. So. Did you know that faces bleed A LOT when you land on them? I DO NOW. I cleaned myself up a bit while I waited for the Lyft and then spent the entirety of the ride wondering if I was wasting everyone's time by going to the ER.
Apparently I wasn't because I did not sit in the waiting room long at all. There were other people there, but I guess I looked bad? Two hours later, I walked back out to another Lyft, at that point with a few pounds of Neosporin on various scratches, two missing teeth (I won't tell you what happened to the one that wasn't where it belonged other than to say that the ER doc who dealt with it clearly felt awful for me because he offered ALL of the good drugs), and an airline ticket back to Pittsburgh in a short four hours.
Fun fact: People on airplanes don't talk to you when you look like you got in a fight with a brick. If you're really desperate for some peace and quiet, go ahead and give it a try. While you're doing that, I'm going to count down the seconds until the dentist rebuilds things next Thursday.
It's going to be a very long week.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Reader Comments (3)
I am so sorry to read this. Hoping the week until you see the dentist isn't too terrible.
As one who test the theory of gravity a lot, have your vitamin D checked. I fell like that and it took all the doctor in all the land to figure out what was wrong with me.
Oh dear. That's not fun at all. I'm glad you got home OK, and I hope the rebuild goes well.
I've only been hurt once on a business trip, was returning from dinner. To this day I have no idea what happened; I woke up the next morning black and blue and with my glasses missing. Wallet and money were all there so I wasn't rolled. The people in the office I was visiting had fun speculating; the best serious guess is that I tripped on a sidewalk, did a header into a low wall next to me, and was concussed. (No, drink wasn't a factor, that's what everyone assumed first!)