Well - Part III

The hospital room was typical and the scene before me was exactly what I would have expected seeing in a hospital room…except I wasn’t expecting to see a hospital room when I awoke.

To me there was no time passage from blacking out in that alleyway in front of the cop and awakening in the hospital. What did transpire in that time frame was that I was now cleaned up, in a hospital gown, an IV connected to my left arm and apparently on some painkillers because I wasn’t feeling any vestige of a hangover. I somehow thought that the hangover was something I was almost expecting despite all the other events of the past few hours.

The nurse who was looking down at me at this moment was wearing the usual crisp white uniform and a small scowl on her face. I wasn’t sure if the subject of the scowl was a reaction to me in general, my injuries, or perhaps she was just having a bad morning. Whatever the cause, she then attended to her duties by checking my IV tubes and bag. She asked me whether I “needed anything”. She offered no explanation as to my condition or the treatment that I was undergoing at the moment but, only gave me a forced smile and then left the room.

I again, attempted to take an inventory to check and see if I had mobility of all of my extremities, check to make sure I could shift my position in the bed (slightly) and then I used the call button to request a nurse. I couldn’t stand the suspense any loner and wanted an explanation as to how hurt I was. I didn’t trust my suddenly optimistic assessment of my current situation.

When the same nurse with the (seemingly) perpetual scowl on her face returned, I blurted out my question…

“So, how busted up am I …?”

“You sustained a couple of fracture ribs, several contusions to various areas of your body and we suspect a minor concussion. Other than that, you should be fine and discharged after an over night here for observation.”

Well, I greeted this information with a mixture of relief and puzzlement. I wasn’t sure if time would allow me to piece together the rest of the events that occurred that morning in that back alleyway but, I’m not sure it’s all that important. My next concerns were really with closing out the credit cards and minimizing whatever monetary damage I was surely going to experience.

Oh, and I needed to call my boss to let him know I wasn’t going to be coming into the office for a couple of days.