Danielle chose scars.
My family had a swing set, and my cousin Lee and I had taken to pushing that one where you sit facing each other like a mini ski lift as high as we could and then run underneath the arch without getting hit.
That's why we were known as Lee and Will: Rocket Scientists.
So one day, as you might expect, things did not go quite according to plan.
Now at this time, I had immeasurable power over Lee. I don't know what happened to that. But anyway. I talked her into going into the house and telling Mom that I had had a little accident because I was too afraid I'd get in trouble if I went myself.
Mom called me in and examined the back of my head where I'd been beaned.
She was very calm until she saw bone.
She rushed me to the doctor's office, telling me to look down in order to stop the blood or keep the wound level or whatever. I didn't care for that.
The doctor told her to take me to the emergency room.
They gave me stitches, and the nurse gave me a teddy bear to hold during the surgery, but I shoved it down the side of the bed/operating table.
What always really weirded me out about was that we had my Aunt Vanessa remove the stitches.
"We're not paying another hospital bill. She can do it. She works there anyway."
"Yeah. As a respiratory therapist," I said. "My breathing's fine. I have stitches in the back of my head."
The family tried to explain that my skin grow over the stitches if we left them in. I was fine with that, but no one listened to me.
So while we were on vacation at Montreat, Vanessa removed the stitches, which really felt sturdier than surgical thread although admittedly it's not like I could have gotten a good look at them. She would coax one end up with her pliers -- I remember seeing the tool made me renew my insistence that I was fine with leaving the stitches in -- and I could feel it dangling from the back of my head like a misplaced antennae.
"Ow!"
"Well. Sit. Still!" Vanessa would say.
When I get a haircut, people can see the scar. But yeah.
2 comments:
When I was little we would turn the long swingsets on the playground into obstacle courses. All the swings going at different speeds, and then you'd have to run straight through. It ended similiarly to yours.
The part about the pliers reminded me about the time that I got a trouble-hook--or teble if you want to be technical about it, but they were trouble--in the elbow (courtsey of my brother) and how my dad intially tried to take the trouble-hook out with pliers (hooked in my elbow with two of the three hooks).
We finally went to the emergency room when my dad couldn't take it out. I remember looking back at the doctor as he approached my elbow with what looked like giant cast-iron pliers crossed with bolt cutters, to which my rational response was to start crying hysterically and burying my face in the hospital pillow, while my mom told me that i was over reacting. I was three.
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