�So...how did I fall?�
�Well, I wasn�t even looking at you and then your glass slid down the bar and you fell. You must have hit the bar stool next to you, and then there was the loud thud. You must have knocked your glass because it was sliding down the bar, except it didn�t fall or anything.�
~~
�Well, it was me sitting next to Diana who sat next to Christopher. And all of a sudden I heard this loud thud! When I looked down, he was just lying there. He didn�t do anything until I lifted up his head and then he jumped up. Well, he didn�t jump, but he got up quick and, probably embarrassed, said �Get away from me� and �lets go.��
~~
Surprise came to me right after school when I learned that my doctor�s appointment was changed from after school on Monday to today. Diana was going to get a physical done since she will be on the Cross Country team. I was going to get a check up on my toe. When I got there, surprise came to me again. I was overdue for a couple of shots. Tetanus being one of them and another one was a new vaccine that I guess was required. That one stung like a motherfucker when she pricked me, but I�m down with that. The next one, I didn�t feel at all.
But if it had not been for that first one, I wouldn�t have agreed to go for ice cream. And we went to �Sweet Mike�s,� a place I thought would have been like Melting Moments, but really ended up looking like something out of the �60s. We walked in and saw a really awesome looking old-fashioned juke box. The guy behind the counter, who took our orders without saying a word, kept changing the music. The place would be a cool hangout place for Saturday nights. My mom, sister, and I walked up to the bar where there were old-fashioned barstools that stuck right into the floor. I looked around and the place was kind of dark because most of the walls and flooring was wooden.
I got a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and a cherry on top. It wasn�t bad, except I wasn�t really feeling like ice cream just then, but the quiet one behind the counter made it look so awesome, I couldn�t not eat it.
Diana said something about me looking drugged, and I didn�t even laugh about it. I looked down at my ice cream, almost finished, and thought about how I couldn�t take another bite. It wasn�t bad at all, I just wasn�t hungry. I thought about how I haven�t been eating well lately, and didn�t think about it any more than that. Then I couldn�t keep my head up. I brought my elbow up to the bar, and realized how hard it would be for a little kid to reach up there. I was having a hard time keeping my elbows up, and I was sitting up straight. I slouched my back and felt how hard it was to keep my hand up. I really couldn�t take another bite, I was way too tired. I closed my eyes.
I opened them to see a woman in blue, obviously an employee, and my mom looking down at me. Surprise. I could see the ceiling. Then my sister asked if I was okay. I got up quickly to look around. I didn�t even realize what was wrong. I felt like I was waking up for the day. What threw me off...in thinking nothing was wrong...was that the couple sitting behind us wasn�t looking at me, and wasn�t doing anything. The quiet one behind the counter had his back turned and was cleaning a glass up.
I told my mom to get out of there, and I walked to the door, but realized Mom and Diana were not close behind me. What the hell?! Did they need to finish their ice creams?!! I couldn�t�ve been out that long.
I almost passed out again when I sat down at a wooden bench in the parlor. The lady in blue brought me my ice cream, and I thanked her, apologized, thanked her, told her I was alright, and said I�m sorry again, just so she�d hear me. She made me feel better saying �I�ve been there.� Then I told her that I was alright and thanked her, and she looked at me with a face of giving-up, saying �Okayyyy.�
She probably thought I was a jerk, because my tone of voice wasn�t too nice sounding, although I was trying to be nice. I stood, and told my mom to get out of there, and she said �Don�t get mad at me,� so I knew I was being a bastard.
In the car, I felt it more than when I had woken up. My head hurt so damn bad. I didn�t feel the hit. It felt like waking up with an awful headache. Before I knew it, we were back at the doctor�s office.
Then, to Diana, I asked, �So...how did I fall?�
~~
Two women came out with my mother...and a wheelchair! Surprise! Your own wheelchair, come on down!
Totally embarrassed, I asked if I really needed the wheelchair and then stumbled my way like a drunk (I�m sure) into the chair on wheels. I knew I could walk if I wanted, and instead, just helped open doors for the nurses. For a moment, I thought of Cedar Point and how I was much more afraid in this wheelchair than I was on the Devil�s Drop. Through the waiting room, I thanked God there wasn�t many people to look at me. And the lady wheeled me straight to the room where I had just come out of my checkup. The same room.
I had a complaint about my eyes, so the new nurse who came in to see me held up two fingers. I shook my head when I could see them. In my far left, there was a black spot to which I couldn�t see. She did the vision test again...and I couldn�t see in my far left, and only in my left eye. My right eye was fine and my right side was fine. The kind lady who wheeled me into the room came back with an ice pack for my head.
The new nurse had me lay down so she could talk to me. I repeated part of what Diana told me in the car...about falling down. Then she went just out the door and asked my mom, whose voice was shaking. My mom told her about how she had heard the thud and that I didn�t get up right away.
~~
I couldn�t hold back tears as they streamed down into my hair. What if I can�t see? I used my own two fingers desperately trying to prove to myself that I could see and that it was a temporary darkness in my eye. Keep your eyes on something, and keep them there. I held up my fingers. After a certain point, in the lower left, my fingers went into blackness...dark.
More tears streamed out of my eyes.
I tried listening to what my mom saw in the parlor as she was telling my new nurse. She was talking fast, double-taking what happened.
The nurse came back in, and the one who wheeled me in came back in the room, too. She gave me tissues. �Are your eyes hurting? Is the light too bright?�
I couldn�t tell her that I was just afraid. I said it was nothing.
�What day of the week is it?�
�Uh, Friday, and there�s a football game tonight.� It was hard to talk.
The nurses closed the door and shut off the lights, telling me to keep my eye where the light of the flashlight was...on the doorknob. They looked at my eyes as I sat, stone-faced and wide-eyed, thinking about how I love the dark and how it was calming me down just now. The darkness was everywhere, but I couldn�t stop thinking about the lower left of my damned eye. I wiped my eyes again.
The light came back on, as she warned, and she did the eye test again. The blackness had faded away slightly, and I told her that it was going to be fine. She left the room again, and I laid back down and held my eyes and the ice pack to my head.
~~ Written the next day ~~
An hour later, I�m on this computer, writing this entry. My eye feels fine. My head doesn�t hurt, but I thank Aspirin for that. Also, the first Williamston Football game was starting in minutes, and my family was anxious to go, waiting for me to shut down the computer. Mom makes a wrong turn, but I am able to see Justin and Zach (or Zack, this isn�t the same Zach). I walk to the group of Justin, Chelsey, Casey, Kelly, and the Zack who was invited out of our drama class.
Chelsey said I needed a watch, since I was a half hour late. Justin said I needed new pants. Everybody paused for a moment, and then laughed for him.
I leaned down to Chelsey and told her that she would be reading what I am now writing later, and it�d be why I was late. (Late for the tale-gate where we�d eat pizza before the game in the parking lot) Mom thought it was best if I wait to go with the rest of the family. I told Chelsey that it was one of those things that you can laugh about later. I couldn�t say that �I was in a wheelchair an hour ago.� That wouldn�t have been nice to say and then not tell a story.
Later, watching the tough guys on the field, I thought about how I could never handle it out there. Justin was calling out the plays and what was going to happen before they happened. They made some silly mistakes, like a face-mask on the offense. Later, I called Byrdman and told him I wished I saw him on the field. He said he went out for one play...a kickoff.
This morning, I came back to finish this entry. I took more aspirin since I can still feel the wood floor on the back of my head, and now my left arm hurts like a bruise. The nurse said I would be sore the next day. I�m not complaining. I�m no cry-baby.
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