My favorite injury

From time to time people ask about the scar above my right eye. So, from time to time, I share the story of how I came to get that scar. I’m actually quite attached to it, and sometimes it’s the only proof I have that the following story actually occurred. It happened in college. It was the first semester of my freshman year, and it was a miserable winter for the girl from sunny San Diego. As soon as the weather allowed, we made a trip out to some caves deep in Idaho. On the way back, the girl driving was going too fast. As she was going around a particularly large divot in the dirt road, she swerved the car hard. I remember the car going into the shrubs on the left side of the path, then driving into the shrubs on the right side. My roommates told me later that we went up and over a large pile of rocks. My head had connected with the metal window frame on my right, and I was bleeding. I was non-responsive, and everyone was freaking out. I found out later one of the girls went and flagged someone down out on the main road. They called 9-1-1, and an ambulance came. I remember at one point seeing the ambulance lights outside the window as I was laying in the backseat and thinking I was in a movie. I also have scattered memories from the ambulance ride. I remember a large light above me, and I remember being in a neck brace strapped to a board. I remember one of my roommates, who had hit her forehead on the wood console, was lying next to me freaking out. I remember taking her hand, and I remember the EMT’s yelling at her to calm down. I remember them calling off life flight, and I remember the oxygen in my nose. Then I remember waking up when the doctor was stitching up my face. I remember a sterile blue field on my face, and I remember being annoyed and pulling it off. Then I remember the doctor’s reaction…it makes me laugh to this day. Turns out you can’t touch a sterile blue field. I remember the doctor telling me I needed a CT scan to take a picture of my brain, and I remember him telling me to stay put. Then I remember getting up and walking to the waiting room. I remember laying on the CT scan table, and I remember walking out of the hospital and it being dark. I remember throwing up in a trashcan outside the ER. I remember the discharge paperwork, and I remember having 3 or 4 of the symptoms they tell you to come back for. Most of all, I remember the day the scab fell off the cut in my face, and I remember looking at my scar for the first time and smiling. Is it weird to write about the freak accident that left a cool, yet subtle scar on my face? Maybe. But now you all know the story, too...