I Need to Write Today

I need to write today!

 

I sure do.

 

I’m itching to write today!

 

The problem is choosing a topic…

 

Guess I’ll start with the bump on my forehead I got yesterday.

 

Yesterday seemed like a good opportunity to get the last of the leaves off my back porch and lawn, so I removed the few things that are sitting on the porch (a big critter cage included, which I’ve never used yet; it was a recycle gift from George Rebar, bless is heart… and arrived looking brand new!).

 

Then I walked out to the front and commandeered a yard waste barrel, the one that wasn’t already filled with leaves from the last time I did this, about a week ago…

 

Then I opened the barrel and started raking leaves and lifting them in.

 

Here’s the oopsie/ignorant bumped-my-forehead part.

 

It says right on the barrel not to wheel it around while the lid is open.  Despite the fact that I’m a law-abiding citizen, I took the warning as a mere suggestion, knowing I was going to be careful not to do anything weird or classically dumb while wheeling the OPEN barrel a few feet forward…

 

So, I started pushing it, but it was pretty heavy, already filled with wet leaves about halfway up, so I lowered it toward me a little more to give me some additional push power…

 

…and then I pushed, hard…

 

…not noticing the hanging barrel lid was now immediately ahead of my foot…

 

…so I stepped onto the lip of the barrel lid, which caused the whole thing to sort of “fold” — with my right foot taking a ride forward as the rest of my body descended toward the ground  and with my forehead on a collision course with the side of the barrel…

 

An instant later, I was nursing a growing bump on my forehead, feeling as foolish as I should have been, and thinking, “When all else fails, read the instructions again, nincompoop!”

 

Of course, my first thought was, “I’m on warfarin (a blood thinner), so a bump on the head can’t be good.”

 

I kept working, because that’s what I do when I’m waiting to figure out what to do next — the best thing is to finish the job, right?! — but every few minutes I’d go into the house to check the progress of the swelling.

 

After about ten minutes, the swelling seemed to reach its zenith (about the size of a hen’s egg, sideways, cut into quarters), and I had no other symptoms of impending doom, so I finished the task and then got on the Internet to search on “bump on the head while on warfarin”, where I found a list of things to look for to decide whether I needed to risk exposing myself to COVID in an urgent care facility or emergency room.

 

I was suffering no additional symptoms (blurry vision, one pupil larger than the other, headache, nausea, vomiting, stroke-like inability to move arms, etc.), but then there were all these “but a bump on the head can be risky without any of these added symptoms, so if you start to feel drowsy or addlepated, don’t hesitate; go to an emergency room right away!”

 

So then I spent the afternoon wondering whether my usual afternoon “desire for a nap” (since I’d been up since 4:30 a.m.) was normal or the result of the head bump!!!

 

Long story short: I’m fine today.  I feel none the worse for wear, except for a very tender/sore spot where my head collided with a retreating yard waste barrel.

 

But I’m supposed to remember the event in case I start to have additional symptoms even as long as three months from now, in case blood pooled into my brain and starts making my body misfire in any way. People have had bumps on the head become problematic months down the line…

 

Oh, joy!

 

(My hematoma/bump was outside my brain, and it wasn’t a hard collision in the way hitting a blunt object would be, since it occurred on retreating hard plastic, so I felt pretty confident I’d be okay…)

 

So, the bottom line here is: don’t be a Kris. When you roll yard waste barrels, even for a few feet, close the lid before you do that. OK?!

 

Because why risk your neck and your brain for a few seconds of inconvenience?

 

It’s a lot more inconvenient to crash and burn (takes longer, too!) than it is to close the lid before you move the barrel.

 

My neck isn’t even stiff or sore today (it never was), so I know the bump was superficial and not jarring.  It felt more like a rug burn as I was earning it than a bumping sensation.

 

Nevertheless, it could have been worse and I don’t want anyone else experiencing the same thing or anything like it.

 

UPDATE December 1, 2020 

Here’s what I look like today!