4.24.2008

a cautionary tale pt. II

I'm warning you right now - several times in this post resides a place where you'll find yourself thinking, too much information.

If you are a teenaged girl, then perhaps you'll find yourself thinking, TMI

With that cautionary caveat, I'm proceeding with the second movement of my bike accident drama.

The open wounds were easily the most visible ailment - but the real kick in the pants was the stiff neck. Man, you don't realize how much you need your neck until you are in bed, moving like you've got metal screws fastening your neck to your shoulders. I was very stiff.

One thing that has been kind of a pain in the butt is that my wounds aren't in good places, to heal. My elbow constantly bumps into things, and when it does it stings like the DICKENS!

My shoulder healing has been stifled by the conventional more of wearing clothes. I can only imagine if I were a nudist, or at least permitted to walk around shirtless I'd be on healed-wound easy street. Be that as it may, my shoulder wound gets agitated by clothing, and thus sticks to, and is otherwise irritated by my shirts. Many of my undershirts have blood stains on them. Its gross.

Weak stomach, should I keep going? Ok... brace yourself...

This has also posed problems for the white sheets on our bed. A week of sleeping on our sheets with my wound made it look like Ashley butchered her husband in bed. Ok, it's not that bad, but still, it's unpleasant.

As a result - because Ashley being a very thoughtful wife - she went out of her way to buy me all sorts of adhesive bandages in hopes that it could spare our sheets some staining, as well as expedite my healing process. She bought two boxes, sheer, and antibiotic!

Ashely is a big fan of neosporin and other anti-infection cremes, tonics, elixirs, and salves... so it was no surprise that she picked up the antibiotic bandages. I opted for those. I put one on my shoulder that night. Hooray... our sheets would be spared!

Everything went well that night, and the next morning I proceeded with my daily activities. Woke up, biked to school. Worked out at the Wooden Center, went to class, and then to work.

This is where the story takes another inevitable turn for the unsavory.

So I'm sitting in my History of The Built Environment class when I notice a smell. An unpleasant smell. I look over my right shoulder and notice a prospective culprit. A guy wearing birkenstocks. I let my nose linger in that direction for a moment, but dismiss the source. I look in front of me, perhaps it's the architecture student - you can't trust those guys right!?!

Nope, not him either. I look down at my beloved R.E. Load messenger bag. I sweat a lot on that thing. I smell it once... then twice... in the middle of class. Nope, clean as a whistle.

That smell, what on earth is that smell?!? It's a combination of B.O, stinky feet, and... rotting food. Really gross. I'm sure it's someone's stinky feet but I can't identify the culprit. Inevitably, my 15 minute scent-witch hunt ends and I find myself drifting back to paying attention in class.

Class ends... and I take the bus to work. I get to work... and I smell the smell again!?! I look over my left shoulder (the shoulder of my wound), and take a determined whiff...

Pee-yew!

I excuse myself to the bathroom where I can partially disrobe and assess the damage. I take off the band aid to give it one last olfactory assessment. BINGO! Really.. really gross. I didn't even have it on a full day, let a lone the "week" it says you can use it for. Disgusting. I can't even imagine the results of a week with that parasite on my shoulder. It'd probably eat my whole arm.

Seriously, It digested my wound. I guess you could say its better now, but it kind of looks raw now, and it is pretty stingy. What the heck band-aid? What kind of double cross is that? People come to you in their moment of suffering and you give them some man-eating foot-stink factory!

Lessons learned. If I could walk around all day like a shirtless Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall, I'm sure my wound would've healed in roughly the same amount of time and I wouldn't have had the traumatic experience of being eaten alive by a band-aid.

I think our first method was better. Tissue folded, and secured on my shoulder with masking tape. The poor man's bandage. (we didn't have the band aids yet)

Kleenex + masking tape is the Poor Man's Band-Aid

Let this be a lesson to any of you who might be in the band-aid market sometime soon.


6 comments:

Peter McFerrin said...

If you'd been more attentive during your stay at Ludwigbeethovenhaus, you'd have noticed the cache of gauze pads and medical tape on the right-hand side of the top shelf of the linen cabinet. Following your injury, you could have called to ask to borrow some such supplies.

But you didn't, Mr. Pulsipher, and that is why you fail. FAIL.

Matt and Jennae Porter said...

Your posts crack me up, David. Sorry your wound has gotten so nasty. When I started work the dermatologist I work for said never to recommend Neosporin to patients because about 30% of people are allergic to it... maybe you are one of the unlucky few?

Mia said...

Wow, people are allergic to neosporin? I learned something new today. Hope your wounds get better soon. If they don't and you keep bleeding on the bed Ashely is going to make you buy her new sheets to make it up to her and she just might demand the 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton. At least that is what I would do if I were Ahsley ;) Really I hope you get better, I mean it.

David said...

pete, even though you aren't a boy scout, you sure do prepare like one.

i'll never forget the great "land line debate of 2006" - having a land line just in case of a 911 call. hysterical.

next time i get hit by a car, you'll definitely be one of the top 20 people i contact. ; )

jennae - thank you for that tidbit of information. i think the odds are pretty good i'm allergic - i mean, why would my wound smell so bad?

what are the symptoms of being allergic to neosporin?

thanks for your well wishes mia.

in all honesty - i'm really doing great. i'm just making this into a little e-drama for the blog's sake.

it's like when emily valentine came to 90210. she wasn't THAT big of a deal, but she sure made good television.

Peter McFerrin said...

I'm an Eagle Scout, sucka. Be prepizzled.

Papp-e said...

Look at those traps Dogg, your rippped.