Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Just Call Me "Grace"

My mother told me once that her and my father picked my middle name because my first and last names were so long that they thought that the middle name should be short. My middle name, Ann, means "grace". This has always been somewhat laughable to me as I am anything but graceful.

Over the past 4 months I have been acclimating to life with hardwood floors. When I looked for a house, I specifically sought out one with hardwood floors. I have allergies, and didn't want to deal with musty carpets. For the most part, they make me happy. I can often be seen taking a few quick steps and sliding for a foot or two in my socks ala Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" only without the tighty-whiteys.

Anyway, on Sunday without even thinking about it, I went running up the stairs in my socks and tripped, striking my left thigh on the edge of a stair. People, I look like I've been hit with a baseball bat, and not just once, but a couple of times. I now have a dark bruise that wraps around the outer left half of my thigh, and it's larger than the area of both of my hands.

One of the things they teach us is that there are three areas of the body that one can bleed out into: the abdomen, the pelvis, and the thighs. One can lose a lot of blood into the chest too, but usually you will have symptoms of difficulty breathing from compressing the heart before all that much of volume has been lost. So there you have it-- a lesson in common sense and a reminder of the workup of a trauma patient all in one moment of clumsiness.

2 comments:

Chris said...

Yeah, but do you were tighty whities when you slide in your socks?

I have done the same thing running upstairs in sock feet, when the socks slip off your feet just enough to make you bust your ass.

Chris
My Blog

Anonymous said...

Hey my middle name is Ann as well!!! My parents always would joke and call me grace because I as always twisting my ankle or falling down I never knew Ann meant grace. They have cursed me to a life of clumsiness!!!

This reminds me that the pediatric residents and I were all talking
about names you never give to your children because they will
bring sickness or an early death to them. Hope, Angle, Miracle, Heaven, Precious, and Espiranza are some of the more deadly.