Birthdays Remind Us to Look Both Ways

It was my birthday last week. I had to work a closing shift that day, and I hightailed it out of the building as soon as I could. I was walking across the street to my car, and suddenly found myself flying through the air. Why, you ask? Well apparently a woman driving a Volvo had come around the corner, didn't see me crossing, and hit me. As my feet lifted off the ground, I thought, "When am I going to land, how much will it hurt?" The answers are: about a second later, and lots.

The point of impact, I believe, was my right hip. There is now a dinner plate-sized bruise there. I'm running an office pool on how big it's going to get. However, I landed on my tailbone. At first glance, this doesn't seem like much, but I had never realized how many things I do on an average day that hurt my tailbone. Driving is the number one culprit at the moment. Driving makes me cry. I literally can't drive longer than 20 minutes because my tailbone hurts so much.

As I sat up, I reached for my phone to call my husband and tell him to come get me. He asked a ridiculous amount of questions before hanging up and coming to my aid. He told me later than he only realized halfway there that I had meant the car had hit ME, and not my car. After I hung up the phone with him, I triaged myself. Head: a small bump, but nothing big. Ribs: okay. Pelvis: tailbone hurts, maybe broken, but functional. Arms: okay. Left leg: fine. Right leg: pain in hip, knee, and ankle. Breathing fine, seeing fine, no dizziness, nausea, or anything else suggesting a concussion. A witness dialed 911 and the very cute firefighter who responded asked me a bunch of questions to make sure I hadn't lost consciousness. I politely refused the $3000 ambulance ride, and told him my husband would take me to the hospital. He made me sign a form so I couldn't sue later if I died. How I would sue from the grave, I still don't know.

Everyone I work with was still in the building and had seen what had happened. They call came out to see if I was okay and called everyone who wasn't there. My husband arrived, talked to the police a little, got my license back, and we headed to the hospital.

We lucked out at the ER: no line. The triage nurse asked me if I at least left some damage on the car. To be honest, I don't know. I never really even talked to the driver, I let the police do that. The doctor X-rayed everything from my lower back down to my right ankle and said there were no breaks, only some deep tissue bruising. As we were waiting for him to come back, I noticed my pants had gotten ripped. That's it! She ripped my pants! Until that point, I had been willing to give that driver a little bit of slack. It was, of course, that annoying time of day when sunset makes it impossible to see anything. I could easily believe she couldn't see me. But that bitch ripped my pants! Politeness Week is over!

The doctor gave me some prescriptions for pain and muscle relaxers. I discovered the next day that if I take them together, the house tilts from side to side. I don't know how those pharmacists do it!

The next day, one of the receptionists called me in a panic because I hadn't shown up to work. I had been under the impression that someone had called her to tell her what had happened, but apparently that didn't happen. She's great. She's everyone's mom. She was sure something was wrong because I'm normally very punctual and it was 20 minutes past where on earth could I be? My husband answered the phone and told her what had happened. She called again later and I picked up, and her first words were, "Happy fucking birthday, right?" I spent that day on the couch hopped up on drugs. It was pretty fun. Everyone at work wanted me to stay home another day, but I felt stupid. Maybe I couldn't do everything I usually do, but I could do SOMETHING. I went to work the next day.

So the bruise is up to 23 cm, which is more than anyone bet on, so I get to keep all $5 in the office pool.

The moral of the story? If you get hit by a car, milk it for all it's worth. Stay home all week, sue the driver for all your medical bills (mine were only $60, what's the point?), shirk responsibility at work, boss people around to get them to do stuff for you. And if you land on your tailbone, suck it up and buy a hemorrhoid pillow. You'll be thankful you did.