Rude Awakening!

(Picture is at the end for those with weak stomachs!)

Woody woke up fairly early and decided to go on a walk. I was half-way awake when he decided to leave (4:30ish) so he asked me if I wanted to go. I asked where he planned to walk to. He said McDonalds and I told him that I didn't think that I could go that far. So I went back to sleep...I heard the door close when he left and heard it open about a half hour later. He came rather quickly up the stairs and into our room and then went into the bathroom. I asked him how come he was home so quickly...his answer..."I fell!" Well, that was the rude awakening! When he turned around to show me, there was a lot of blood! Luckily he had a handkerchief with him. I am amazed, now that it is over, that there wasn't a lot more blood on things. He was very careful!

He took the route that takes him up a rather steep incline...he's not exactly sure what happened. It had been misting and he doesn't know if his shoes slipped or if he tripped or what...but down he went. He said that his mouth hit first...other than that he doesn't know much as to what got hurt when! I guess he was about a mile from home. The right side of his body seems pretty unscathed...except for the right side of his nose. His lower left arm had scrapes and cuts...partly from the fact that he had a bag of aluminum cans in that hand (he collects cans for recycling when he walks) and he also has medic alert bracelets on that wrist (there are scrapes/scratches that follow where they were on his arm). The first thing that we attended to was getting bandaids onto those places on his lower arm that were bleeding. And then we had a bloody nose to contend with. We first used a bag of ice and then changed to a bag of frozen peas. The peas definitely worked the best. His nose finally quit bleeding, but he did lose quite a bit of blood...now praying that he doesn't sneeze and undo the clot! I am also praying that his left arm near the wrist is just bumped and bruised. That is the arm that was broken so severely near the wrist in his bicycle accident two years ago and never healed completely. We were told that all his wrist/arm would need was a bad fall and it would break again. Oops!

Take note in the pictures below that he is in the same chair ten hours after his fall. This is the recliner in our bedroom. That is where he headed after we got him cleaned up some, where he sat with an ice pack on his nose for some time, and where he stayed till around 2:30pm. He has rested and slept a good part of that time. Around 2:30 he came downstairs and went out to get the mail. He has eaten a little...his mouth is pretty swollen and he loosened some teeth so he is sticking to soft food for the time being. He did say that he thought that he was going to be "ok"...about an hour ago. This has sort of done me in too...shortly after the bleeding got stopped, I felt about like a limp dish rag. I slept for several of the hours that he slept. Hopefully the worst is behind him...though, I'm sure that he will feel some extra aches and pains tomorrow! And, for those wondering why didn't we go to the hospital...well, there are so many restrictions (due to the protocol he is on) as to what can be done to/for him, we just decided it would be easier to try to deal with it ourselves. I did dig out the number to the 3rd floor nurses station at NIH in case we needed advice from them. And, I got dressed at 5am just in case we needed to go to the emergency room...so we were ready to seek help if the need arose.

Well, that about sums up our day...hope none of you had such a rude awakening! (And, I thought that I was going to get to start machine quilting on Joy's quilt today...oh, well, as Scarlett said, "tomorrow is another day!")