Eat Play Love: "Don't let them shave your head..."

Well most of you probably already know by now thanks to the social networking of both Facebook and my family, but I had my first real injury here in Lithuania. It actually happened about 2 weeks about but I’m gonna use my busy schedule and my minor concussion as an excuse for why it took me so long to blog about it. :) Also, I’m gonna cheat a little bit and rather than recount the whole story again, I’m copy and pasting the email that I wrote to my family about it the day after it happened…

So yesterday was like an easier day of practice. In the morning we just shot and then in the evening we had a "fun day" of playing games (which as we all know by now ended up not being so fun...lol). We played like 5 variations of tag, some monkey in the middle type stuff, things like that. Then the final thing we did was play soccer. As we know I am NOT the best soccer player (as we can remember from my brief and embarrassing stint in the Belle Clair soccer League...). But regardless I wanted to try my best. After playing goalie the entire game, Pikce decided she wanted to trade me so I went out as a regular player. Well literally the very next play the other team had a corner throw-in so everyone was obviously huddled close to the goal. Marius (strength coach) has like a 3 foot vertical so we knew they were gonna try to lob it up to him for a header. Well after that I'm not sure exactly what happened. When we both jumped to try to get it I remember hearing a loud pop/crunch sound and then things were black for a sec until I landed and realized we had bumped heads. I started stumbling around a little, trying to collect myself, obviously holding my head where I had got bumped. Then when people came around asking if I was ok I took my hand away and saw a whole bunch of blood. I figured I was ok enough so I walked over (with a couple of the girls’ help) to the bleachers and sat down. Marius was obviously much worse from the beginning. His nose was bleeding everywhere and they pretty much assumed it was broken right away. We sat there for awhile with Migle going back and forth tending between the 2 of us, with the girls intermittently coming and asking how we were. Then to my surprise Court was like "you know they called the ambulance for you guys" and all of a sudden like 3 EMTs were by me checking my head. It's not as dramatic as it sounds, but I was still surprised that they went to that trouble, since I didn't think the cut was that bad. But they said they were gonna take me to the hospital bc they thought I needed stitches. While waiting for the girls to get all my things together, the EMTs asked me (through thebroken translation of Vita) if I wanted some pain meds. Assuming I'd get a quick IV or something I said ok, forgetting that that's not the way they do it here. Sooo in the middle of the gym they pulled down the side of my pants and gave me a shot in the butt! Hahaha. No worries, completely normal here. Lol. And really at that point I didn't care. My butt was actually pretty sore from it though which i guess was ok bc it took my mind off my throbbing head.

Anyways, then walking out I got the big surprise to finally get my 1st ambulance ride! (As you guys remember i've always been a little bitter that Mom didn't let me ride in the ambulance when i got my first stitches when I was 6. Lol. So this was a dream come true! That is, to ride in an ambulance but not for a serious medical issue :) ). It wasn't as exciting as I thought as we didn't have the sirens on and since no one else spoke English (just Marius and I in there and he doesn’t speak it) andddd the fact that my head was still hurting. But we made it to the hospital with Migle and Courtnay following. Filled out some papers and then they took me back to a gurney to lie down. Then after like 8 people huddled around me and looked at my head (all speaking Lithuanian mind you), the 1 nurse who spoke English came and told me that they were gonna give me some stitches and do a CT scan. All fine with me until she said they were gonna have to shave my head a little around the cut!! :( (which as i was leaving the gym and all the girls were wishing me well, the last thing Giedre said was "good luck, don't let them shave your head!" Haha). So they took a little razor blade and i guess made a clearing around my cut. Still haven't seen it yet so don't know the damage...

Then they wheeled me to a room to get stitches. The guy nurse/doctor spoke pretty good English and told me he was gonna give me an anesthetic first which would hurt but then I wouldn't feel anything after that. Sounded good to me. And it did hurt a little but nothing too bad. Wellllll then he started in on the stitches which I COULD FEEL! So I said "I feel, I feel, I feel!" (Yes, broken English. Hahaha.) And he said "Yeah? You feel?" and I said "yes!" Ha. It didn't hurt too bad but knowing that I wasn't supposed to be feeling anything I wanted to tell him before he started the serious work! So he said he'd do more anesthetic- remember, the stuff that hurts? Well it did! I don't know if he did 3 different shots of it or was just moving his needle all around or what but it was ROUGH! As I was wincing in pain and mumbling a mixture of English and Lithuanian curse words, the nurse who spoke only Lithuanian grabbed my hand and tried to comfort me, so that was nice. I guess there's no language barrier for being in pain. Haha. But after that they stitched me up no problem (4 stitches!) and then took me to get my CT done. Then they wheeled me back to the like triage area and I sat there waiting for awhile until I asked the English speaking nurse if Migle could come see me. I hadn't seen her since they first took me back so I kinda wanted to touch base and see what was going on. So she came back and then sat with me for awhile. Said we had to wait for my test results to come back. She also said that Marius' nose was broken pretty badly, in like 3 places. So looks like I at least got the better end of the deal! Ha. Migle also had them give me some more pain meds (another shot in the butt!) so that made things feel better. She sat there for awhile just talking, holding my hand and petting my head like a mother of course while we waited. As you know, she takes such good care of us. :) She left then to go check on Marius again and I dozed off after that. She came back and woke me up to tell me that my test results were fine and we could leave. Although the gauze they had wrapped me in was full of blood so she asked someone to re-do it before we left. Which it was a differently lady who did it TERRIBLY!! My ears were sticking out everywhere and my hair was a mess under it. So after we walked out to the waiting room and Court and Marius (and allll the other people out there) got a good laugh at me, Migle sat and re-did it. Court and I left then, around 9 or 9:30, but apparently Marius and Migle didn't end up leaving til 11:30. Turns out he has to get surgery this week to fix it! Poor guy!!! :(

So I feel fine now. My head hurts a little but that’s expected, nothing serious and all my tests results were fine so I'm generally ok! :) I just have to wear this stupid gauze all around my head like a mummy! Court stayed at my apartment last night to make sure that I didn't get sick (like from a concussion) throughout the night (which I didn't). No practice today, there were only aerobics this morning which I got to miss. :) Honestly the worst part right now is that I can't wash my hair myself!!! Mind you it was already sweaty from our "games practice" and then it got all covered in blood! I think the nurse tried to wash it with a cloth a little bit but it didn't help much! It's this nasty, crunchy, grody mess!!! And, as Court said, it looks like I dyed my hair red!! Lol. So as soon as Court gets back from aerobics I think she’s gonna come help me wash it. I know, such a good friend. :) And I can’t wait!!!

Well, that’s my story. Crazy how it all went down. Funny- or not so funny- that the time I get hurt is while playing soccer. And of course I have now vowed to never play that stupid sport again! Ha. But I am glad that it wasn’t too serious and that it happened during an off week with no games. I would have been even more heated if I would have had to miss a game because of it! Also lucky that I only got what I would consider a “mild concussion”. I really felt ok for the most part and after taking a week off I was good to go when I started practicing again. I got the stitches out a few days ago and it doesn’t look that bad. My bald spot is growing back and can now be classified as “stubble”. Luckily its on the right side of my head and I’m a parter on the left side so my hair should always cover it. Probably the worst part was having to be careful when washing my hair for the week I had stitches. And the fact that I had to constantly keep my whole head covered in my mummy gauze. We came up with a solution though where I could wear Marina’s loose-fitting stocking cap to cover it up. Not really my style (I looked like a gangster) but it was less embarrassing than walking around looking like I was recovering from World War 2…hahaha.

So I’ve now got my 3^rd set of stitches and just another story to add to my memories. :) And of course, my stories are always better told in pictures….Enjoy! (But warning- there's a few blood shots. Don't get queasy ;) )