It's been a little over a day now since one of the longest 24 hours of my life. I spent most of it with Justyn so he can fill in the gaps. Still haven't really processed everything so I mostly just think of it all in a chronological deluge of snippets, which I will dispense now...
Scott's bachelor party was nearly complete, all of the majorly dangerous stuff long since completed, we're all in the clear. I'm laying on the couch in the cabin wavering in and out of a nap when Patrick bursts through the door declaring that Ed has had an accident and we need to find towels. The last thing I remember before dozing off was the appearance of a compound longbow so that sprang instantly to mind. We quickly find out that he's crash on a motorcycle instead. The crash isn't so bad, low speed, but he hit a fallen tree while doing it and managed to stab himself in the thigh. We would later learn that it the limb that stuck him was about an inch and a half in diameter and went about 9 inches deep. Everyone loads Ed into my car where Justyn joins me and we head off down the windy mountain road to Levenworth - about 20 miles away - doing close to 90. I must tip my hat to the drivers on the road that night. When we came screaming along flashing brights and honking the horn they all pulled as far out of the way as possible, no one was rude or anything. We never saw any police so sadly no flashing light escort. When we hit levenworth proper - for those not in the know, a small "alpine" style village in the cascade mountains - we slowed to about 60, drove down the center of the highway and blew through a couple of stop signs. It was around 9:30 at night so not many cars but lots of startled pedestrians. J and I get Ed into the emergency room and they start cutting away the rest of his pants.
It's at this point in our narative when we leave the world of action and adventure, speed and pain, and enter the world of the truely fucked up.
The nurse on hand is extremely nice and efficient. She asks her assistant for gauze, he brings back a little two inch square. She explains that that might not be enough to cover the wound. Right! of course... this three inch square aught to do the job. She goes and gets it herself. After a few more "learning experiences" on behalf of her junior aid the doctor shows up. The presumably gay doctor. "well, lets get your underwear off, I want to check you out", "You have a very firm, tight stomach. How's your groin?" mind you these are 2 of the first 4 questions. Later followed with such gems as "do you think you broke your neck?" I learn later from Jennie that this isn't that unusual a question, but at the time we were a little shocked. Some poking, prodding and X-Raying later and we find out that, yeah it's a pretty big hole all right, and they can't do anything. This emergency room - the whole hospital in fact - doesn't have an anesthesiologist. They're mostly just an ambulance parking lot. Time to pile ed into the car and drive him to wenatchee. They at least bandage up his leg and give him some vicodin, then send us on our merry way.
A half hour, slightly slower, drive later and we're in the central washington hospital emergency room. Here we have one fairly woozy and obviously in pain patient and two able bodied friends standing beside him. They have us wheel him up to the admittance desk and begin asking him questions. Justyn tries to answer but they're fairly adiment about ed providing the information. Fine, whatever. We get through the buzz cut man in a black suit to be presented with a nicer nurse who, sadly, has to get all of the information again. While Ed's doing his best not to pass out the screaming drunk woman with two black eyes stumbles up to where Ed was and begins harassing the staff. Not much else to do but listen and watch:
"Ma'am, can we get your name?"
"fuck you, I hate you, it's in the computer, fuck you"
yeah, it got worse after that. tears, or whatever, streaming from her face they finally call in the security guards to be there and present a menacing front. It doesn't help much. Thankfully they finish with ed and wheel him through to the area with the beds. We pass a woman straining violently to get out of her neckbrace and restraining straps, another woman being worked on in the middle of the hall, and (what I thankfully missed but Justyn described as) "Jabba the hutt convulsing on a table". An hour of blissful quiet in the room while ed has blood drawn and tests run and they tell us he'll be in for surgery to clean out the wound and we should probably just get a hotel room. J spotted a place with free breakfast on the drive in to town so we head out for that, pulling a couple of wide weaving turns or full 360s in the middle of the highway as we try and find it at 2 am.
Check in. J cleans the blood off of his clothing and I crash out early to dream feverishly of storming a fortress at disney land, helping a band of plucky prostitues escape from their evil pimp, and long aisles of gardening equipment. Breakfast turns out to be rancid gravy with no buiscuts and a waffle iron with a "waffles are done" klaxxon that startles everyone. After checking that ed's done but not yet awake we head for Dennys unshaven in stinking clothes some of which still have traces of ed-flesh on them. We meet the man/woman with a surprisingly square giant ass and her traveling companion, the man with a hook, their neighbors "nice lady" and "old woman who constantly blows her nose onto the chair". After learning that the "meat meat and meat" omlet has more meat than the "meat and meat" omlet we scarf down breakfast, head over to the hospital and see how ed's doing.
Pretty well it turns out. He missed all of the nerves and ateries, missed all of the bone, did get some dirt in there and they won't be able to close it up and send him home for nearly a week but all in all not so bad. We joke around with him for a while - he now wants to install a pneumatic bed at home so he can be exceptionally lazy - and we get some souvineer scrubs to replace Justyn's now biohazard clothing. We head back to the cabin where we meet up with scott miles and trent and begin the drive home. There are debates about which cars compensate most for the tiny members of their respective drivers. The Suzuki suv with the "real men don't need viagra, lizards taste great" bumper sticker (still trying to figure that one out), and of course the diner full of health code violations. We drop off J and get home. I'm every so slightly tired at this point and crash to dream of nothing.
Absolutely nothing. sweet, relaxing blackness.
Did I miss anything?
