Oh, no! A broken toe and other great reasons not to iron your clothes

September 01, 2010 Casey Stoddard

casey@connectstatesboro.com

    Last weekend was full of excitement for me. On Friday night I worked late, and on Saturday, I went to the pool party at Copper Beech, then  I planned to go to Tommy Palmer's book signing at Emma Kelly Theatre, but I didn’t quite make it there.
    I picked out my outfit and decided I should probably iron my pants – I don’t want to walk around looking like a hobo.
    Fail. I mean, epic fail. There aren’t many nice and pretty things that fly out of your mouth when a hot iron falls on your foot. And 10 minutes later, there still aren’t many nice things coming out. I immediately wished I could Apple-Z my way out of this one.
    I hysterically called my mega-awesome and super-tolerant boyfriend to pick me up and take me to the emergency room. When he arrived, I was pretty sure that my entire foot was broken.  At this point, which he calmly explained I was being a little dramatic, to which I replied, rather dramatically, that he was being unfair.
    If you have ever had to go to an emergency room, you know there is a good chance that you will get there and have to wait for at least a couple of hours to be called back. You have to take things like your ID and your insurance cards and fill out paper work, and that is just how it is.
    After you fill out your paperwork, you wait to be called into the triage room —
this is the room where they sort patients based on the severity of injury or illness.
    After talking to the nurse in the triage room, I went back out into the waiting room to wait for my name to be called. To pass the time, I did a little people watching.
    It’s always interesting sitting in a waiting room. There was a family sitting across from me — a mom and dad with three children, two girls and a boy, who were possibly the most entertaining things in the room. They all seemed to be about five or six years old, and I imagine the girls had been playing dress-up before they had to go to the ER. One was wearing hot pink tights with a lime green tutu and the other was wearing a shimmering skirt over her denim skirt. They were rambunctious and excited to be in a new place.  
    There were people who came in, who obviously were very sick and needed to be taken straight back, and the people who had been waiting for an hour who were upset that a child with appendicitis was taken back before them.
        There was a group of girls who apparently cared very much for the welfare of a teammate who had sustained a cut on her leg. And receptionist, who despite having to work on a Saturday night with patient’s who wanted to yell at her because they felt they had waited long enough or deserved some extra, special treatment was upbeat with a great since of humor.
    It was easy to amuse myself with the ER waiting room drama for a couple hours. But I was more than ready to bee seen by the time they called me back for my x-rays.  
    I have to say, despite all that was going on, I felt like the staff really was doing its best to keep me comfy. The nurse practitioner, Mike, was very nice and considerate and the nurse with great hair laughed at all of my lame jokes.
    After my x-rays were reviewed and it was decided that only my toe was broken, I was offered some ibuprofen and a pain shot, which I accepted gratefully. But it is necessary to mention now that when someone offers you a pain shot you, should know it likely will be painful. So I spent the next few minutes saying "Ouch, my toe," and "Ouch, my arm."  
    As I was walking out of the building and into the parking lot that night humming the theme from ER after being dismissed, I remember thinking to myself, that wasn't so bad.
    So ,thank you, Saturday crew, for treating me so well. That was possibly the most pleasant trip to the ER I have ever had.  
    I think there is something you can learn from every bad thing that happens to you, and what I learned Saturday night is that having wrinkle-free clothes is overrated and ironing is just plain dangerous. From now on, it’s just a dryer fluff for my duds.
    So, if you see me walking around at the game on this weekend with a wrinkled t-shirt or game day dress looking like a hobo, you will know why.
            
    Casey Altman is the editor of Connect Statesboro. She can be reached via e-mail at casey@connectstatesboro.com, or at (912) 489-9405.

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