Day 3: The injury . .Viewer Discretion is Advised

Day 3
24 May 2015

I was excited for this day.  Snorkeling in the morning, Pearl Harbor in the afternoon (although we were feeling more like swimming all day).  I was excited to finally be in the water (Looking back, I kick myself for waiting until Day 3).   Our snorkeling guide was Erik, our cabana landlord/family of a friend.

 So this was an accidental picture, but it's my last with normal eyebrows.  I was taking a picture of Shark's Cove, where we were about to go snorkeling.  We'd already snorkeled a few miles away, and this was our second spot.  

Shark's Cove.  It's really pretty.  To be honest, I was apprehensive looking out at those rocks.  I had a small scratch on my hand from our last snorkel spot, and that was from my intentionally grabbing the reef to pull myself underwater.  I knew they were sharp, (although I hadn't fully grasped how slippery they were) and I just had that feeling.  (I've asked myself since then, was that feeling a prompting by the Spirit not to go?  Or was it just a warning that something was going to happen?  Oh, if I'm really honest, I'll admit I had that apprehensive feeling about our trip to Hawaii in general.  I'm only glad that whatever happened, happened to me and not my kids.)

But I liked snorkeling, and I wanted to do more of that more than I wanted to be afraid of the rocks.  So on we went, making our way down the rocks to the waterline.

[Enter accident rock picture here. . . anybody in Hawaii want to go get one for me?  Message me and I'll tell you where to look.]
I'm a confident hiker.  I mean, I hiked an entire mountainside using only fallen trees as my walkway, so I have an appreciation for good footwork.  And I've walked on wet rocks before. I remember watching where I was placing my feet as we stepped across the rocks.  My last image before my fall is a spot on the other boulder where I wanted to step because it looked like it had good grip. But the next thing I know, and without any sensation of falling (which I'm grateful for-- that is the stuff of nightmares) I hit the other boulder with my face and a thud like a drum, and it felt like my head was going to explode.

But pain like that, and like labor pain, gives me focus.  It's like there's a part of me that takes over and, well, I get nice or funny or both.

I used my hands to get to my feet, but I kept my eyes closed against the brilliant pain that was my face.  Once I was on my feet, I put my face in my hands and focused. My head pounded.  I remember Erik scrambling back to me.  He told me we needed to go.  I didn't want to.  I wanted to go snorkeling.  No I didn't, I realized. There's blood dripping through my hands and my head hurts; this felt like something from a book.  I turned my face up to him and asked, "How's my face?"  He told me later that he tried really hard at this moment to stay calm for my sake. (I feel bad for him that he probably has this image of me indelibly imprinted in his memory--Sorry, Erik!)   I remember the sound of his voice more than his words, but I think he told me we need to get to a doctor fast.  I asked him if I was going to need plastic surgery, and his answer was iffy.  I laugh now to think about it because he was trying not to let on that I had a hole in my face. 

The Captain was picking his way toward me (my feet are harder than his. . . he calls himself a tenderfoot) and I was so glad to collapse into his arms.  I didn't want to walk.  But I had to.  We had to get back to the truck, and that involved climbing up six feet of rock at some point.  But before that, Erik told me to take off the rash guard shirt he'd let me wear and press it against my face.  I couldn't tell at that point how much of my face was injured-- it felt as if it was the entire right side, so that's where I pressed it.  I got my bearings on my feet a bit and we moved back the way we came.

An older couple watched with gaping mouths as I limped by.  I made some joke about how I have good insurance.  That was around the time we were stepping up the 6 foot ledge up to the level of the truck.  I don't know how I did that.

The truck was a welcome relief because I really wanted to sit down.  I knew I shouldn't sleep, as much as I wanted to, so I started talking.  The Captain and I know each other (11 years marriage does that for people), but Erik I did not know.  So I started asking him questions.  I laugh to remember his response to my first question, "So Erik, how did you meet your wife?" He paused and let out a little breath as if he couldn't believe I'd just asked him that, "Really?"  "Yes, I love stories, and it will help me deal with my pain." So I grilled hi and he complied. Just like during the labor of my second daughter, as long as someone was talking, I didn't notice the pain, but as soon as there's a pause, it nearly drowned me.  Did I mention I love stories?

I told the Captain he'd better document this.

 And this is me after I fell, walking into the Waihiawa ER.  My head hurt real bad.

Erik, our snorkeling guide/cabana land lord/ ER finder/family of friend, with his adorable baby.

And now for the wound reveal!
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It's best viewed on a big screen, if you can take it.
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Here goes!

The triage picture.  I didn't have to stay long here, of course.

 Accompanied by a salad-plate-sized scrape that turned into a nice bruise.  It took over a month to heal up and not be tender.

 My right arm and hand was scraped up just a bit; this was the first to heal.  I was carrying our snorkeling gear in my left hand, and it came out unscathed.

 My left leg. This was the most painful, don't ask me why.  It hurt that day, and over the next few days would only hurt more.


Ready for a close-up?

 A closeup of the cleaned wound.  It damaged the supraorbital nerve, which comes out the end of the eyebrow and goes back across the top of the head, servicing the forehead and scalp with sensation.  I didn't realize that I'd damaged this nerve until the next day when I noticed it was still numb even though the lidocaine had surely worn off.  As of now, almost a month later, I have a good deal of sensation back (its return feels like the pulling of hair), but not total.  In some places I have pain sensation but not pressure, or visa versa.  I imagine I would have been in a lot more pain had my nerve not been damaged.


It turns out that once I came in and was injected with lidocaine, a bunch of other people in more urgent condition than I came in.  So we waited a good two point five hours (and I needed more lidocaine) before I got sewn up.  All this time, I quizzed Erik, and we swapped parenting epithets, and we talked church stuff.  It was good times.  I cannot differentiate when I heard which stories (and I told him I would remember everything, which I do pretty well, but only in pictures, not necessarily in coherent stories).  I remember telling him to keep talking as I was getting stitched, but I mostly remember Jay massaging my hands and feet.  

 Two stitches in my left leg.

Eleven stitches and lots of glue on my forehead.  The cute surfer doctor didn't clean off the blood before he doused it in superglue, so the blood in the glue made it look a lot stranger than it otherwise might have. 

After our nearly four hours at the ER, Erik asked me where I wanted to go for lunch.  I told him I wanted a  shrimp from a shrimp truck, so he took us to one that had been featured on some TV show.  I loved the coconut shrimp I had, but I was starting to feel nauseated and worn out.  I just wanted to sleep.  Head wounds do that to a person.

However, back at the cabana, I only slept for an hour.  I was upset that this had happened to me in Hawaii, so I got up and took a walk down the street.  It was a very slow walk.  One lady noticed my injuries and recommended I walk on the sandy beach to develop strength in my ankles.  I thought that was funny; strong ankles didn't do me a lick of good on the reef.

Later, we took a little walk on the beach.

And Erik gave us a tour of the family farm.

 This is a mango tree.


 That evening, we went to a place called Opal Thai for dinner.

A pretty water cup.

I wasn't terribly hungry, but the food was great.  The owner/chef came out and custom-built a three-course meal for us.  We sat close to a couple European gals and their conversation helped buoy me up.  They both thought my eye injury was a birth mark, which I thought was funny.

I was grateful to get home and sleep.