Blood, black toenails and why you should always shovel your driveway
"What's wrong with your toenails?!" the paramedic said loudly enough that I could hear her upstairs.
She was in the top floor of our house, attending to my husband whose head was dripping blood on our floor. I was running around our kitchen, one floor below, trying to find my cellphone and where I'd dropped my car keys.
"He hurt his toes, too?" I thought.
"I'm coming!!!" I screamed as I ran up the steps to the paramedics and my sick and injured husband.
A few hours earlier, my husband and I had been enjoying a quiet day, relaxing on our one-year wedding anniversary. We'd celebrated with our family and friends the day before and, on our official anniversary, we were just taking it easy. After dinner, I tiptoed upstairs and put my husband's anniversary card on his pillow so he could open it when we were going to bed later that night. But a few minutes after dinner, he said he didn't feel good and went to rest on the couch. An hour later, he was much worse and so he went up to bed for the night. (This was really not the way I expected my anniversary night to go, but marriage is for better and for worse.) He'd put my anniversary card on my pillow, too.
"We'll open them tomorrow morning when you feel better, OK?" I told him.
I crawled into bed with my husband. He was clammy and restless - not feeling good. There was definitely no bow-chicka-bow-bow going on tonight.
Off to sleep I went, thinking warm thoughts about surviving our first year of marriage ...
BAM!
There was a loud thud in my house.
BAM!
Another one.
And then a crash.
I got up out of bed. In my tired brain, I thought my husband was crashing around in the kitchen, maybe do doing dishes – even though it just a little before 4 a.m. He wasn't there. He also wasn't in our bathroom.
And then I saw him, collapsed in the doorway of a bedroom.
His head was bleeding and he was unconscious.
I started yelling, screaming for him to wake up.
He didn't stir but my two-year-old son woke up.
I called 911. It was the first time I've ever had to do that in my life.
And then, probably from adrenaline, I went into a calm take-care-of-my-family zone.
I'd taken a CPR course a couple of years ago and I remembered the instructor said homeowners should always make sure paramedics can find their house, especially if it's dark and the weather is bad. I flew through my home, turning on every inside and outside light. Then I found my car keys and repeatedly hit the lock function on my keychain so my car's taillights would continually flash. I scooped up my son and put him on my bed with toys to keep him busy and then sat with my husband until the paramedics arrived (outrageously quickly).
(We got a good lesson in why you should always shovel your driveway. This was the weekend when Kingston had a major dump on Friday and then more snow Sunday morning and our driveway was full of snow, even though we'd shovelled it twice already that weekend. The paramedics could barely walk through our driveway and there was no chance of getting a stretcher up through the snow if there had been a serious problem.)
The paramedics checked out my husband and thought that he'd fallen and hit his head.
"So, he didn't have a heart attack? A stroke?" I asked.
They said they thought he was sick and had likely been lightheaded, fallen, and hit his head on a dresser. But they still wanted him to go emerg and get checked out.
Relieved, I set out through my home to find everything I needed to go to Kingston General Hospital - with a two-year-old at 4 a.m.
And then I heard one of the paramedics say: "What's wrong with your toenails?"
"I'm coming!!!" I screamed to everyone, bounding up the stairs, two at a time.
What could be wrong now?
And then, as soon as I got back to my husband, for the first time since the drama began half an hour earlier, I felt my family was going to be OK.
"Runner's toe," my husband said.
"It's from running a half marathon. Blood under the toenail."
"Well, that will teach you to do something silly like that then, won't it?" the paramedic said with a smile.
My husband smiled, too.
And I exhaled.
I've never been so happy to see his blood-filled, black and purple toenails.
In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, in good toenails and bad.
She was in the top floor of our house, attending to my husband whose head was dripping blood on our floor. I was running around our kitchen, one floor below, trying to find my cellphone and where I'd dropped my car keys.
"He hurt his toes, too?" I thought.
"I'm coming!!!" I screamed as I ran up the steps to the paramedics and my sick and injured husband.
A few hours earlier, my husband and I had been enjoying a quiet day, relaxing on our one-year wedding anniversary. We'd celebrated with our family and friends the day before and, on our official anniversary, we were just taking it easy. After dinner, I tiptoed upstairs and put my husband's anniversary card on his pillow so he could open it when we were going to bed later that night. But a few minutes after dinner, he said he didn't feel good and went to rest on the couch. An hour later, he was much worse and so he went up to bed for the night. (This was really not the way I expected my anniversary night to go, but marriage is for better and for worse.) He'd put my anniversary card on my pillow, too.
"We'll open them tomorrow morning when you feel better, OK?" I told him.
I crawled into bed with my husband. He was clammy and restless - not feeling good. There was definitely no bow-chicka-bow-bow going on tonight.
Off to sleep I went, thinking warm thoughts about surviving our first year of marriage ...
BAM!
There was a loud thud in my house.
BAM!
Another one.
And then a crash.
I got up out of bed. In my tired brain, I thought my husband was crashing around in the kitchen, maybe do doing dishes – even though it just a little before 4 a.m. He wasn't there. He also wasn't in our bathroom.
And then I saw him, collapsed in the doorway of a bedroom.
His head was bleeding and he was unconscious.
I started yelling, screaming for him to wake up.
He didn't stir but my two-year-old son woke up.
I called 911. It was the first time I've ever had to do that in my life.
And then, probably from adrenaline, I went into a calm take-care-of-my-family zone.
I'd taken a CPR course a couple of years ago and I remembered the instructor said homeowners should always make sure paramedics can find their house, especially if it's dark and the weather is bad. I flew through my home, turning on every inside and outside light. Then I found my car keys and repeatedly hit the lock function on my keychain so my car's taillights would continually flash. I scooped up my son and put him on my bed with toys to keep him busy and then sat with my husband until the paramedics arrived (outrageously quickly).
(We got a good lesson in why you should always shovel your driveway. This was the weekend when Kingston had a major dump on Friday and then more snow Sunday morning and our driveway was full of snow, even though we'd shovelled it twice already that weekend. The paramedics could barely walk through our driveway and there was no chance of getting a stretcher up through the snow if there had been a serious problem.)
The paramedics checked out my husband and thought that he'd fallen and hit his head.
"So, he didn't have a heart attack? A stroke?" I asked.
They said they thought he was sick and had likely been lightheaded, fallen, and hit his head on a dresser. But they still wanted him to go emerg and get checked out.
Relieved, I set out through my home to find everything I needed to go to Kingston General Hospital - with a two-year-old at 4 a.m.
And then I heard one of the paramedics say: "What's wrong with your toenails?"
"I'm coming!!!" I screamed to everyone, bounding up the stairs, two at a time.
What could be wrong now?
And then, as soon as I got back to my husband, for the first time since the drama began half an hour earlier, I felt my family was going to be OK.
"Runner's toe," my husband said.
"It's from running a half marathon. Blood under the toenail."
"Well, that will teach you to do something silly like that then, won't it?" the paramedic said with a smile.
My husband smiled, too.
And I exhaled.
I've never been so happy to see his blood-filled, black and purple toenails.
In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, in good toenails and bad.
Labels: anniversary, Kingston General Hospital, marriage, running
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