Friday, June 6, 2014

Val is No Relation to Petey the Our Gang Dog

Perhaps I have revealed a bit of personal details concerning my recent dalliance with blood-thinners. Shh...do not violate my hippy HIPAA rights by distributing my medical information to unscrupulous parties. I do not need traveling salesmen hawking corks and stoppers to arrive on my porch in an effort to sell me supplies for staunching the flow of my life fluid should an unfortunate blood-letting accident occur.

I must remain ever-vigilant so as not to waste a drop. Oh. Sorry about that if any of you faint at the sight or mention of blood. Perhaps you should sit down, put your head between your knees, and think about cotton candy and golden retriever puppies and rainbows and unicorns. There now. The rest of us are continuing on this adventure.

I only noticed about three days after my hospital discharge that I had an egg buried under my skin around the waistline area. An ostrich egg, it felt like. Each day, it decreased a bit, to a double-yolk, a regular egg, a banty egg, then a jawbreaker. It's still there. But now I know what it is. My doctor said that when I got my third shot of intra-fat bloodthinner, the nurse must have nicked a small vein. So that blood leaked out and formed an egg. Okay, he didn't say it in those exact words, but that's what he meant. Now that midriff area is all colors of the rainbow, no longer deep purple, and itches like the dickens.

Each day, I am careful not to enter an MMA title match, moonlight as a crash test dummy, climb into the dryer for a spin, or walk through a juvenile detention center like that of Sean Penn and Esai Morales in the original Bad Boys (caution, clip is rated R for raging bloody violence) after angering one of the detainees, lest I be beaten with several cans of cola in a pillowcase. And for the same reason, I do my best not to mess up Full Metal Jacket basic training drills for my fellow soldiers, lest they try the same trick with bars of soap in a pillowcase after I have succumbed to slumber in my upper bunk. I do everything possible to protect my network of veins and arteries from undue pressure.

On Wednesday morning, I awoke with a sinus headache. My nasal cavities were congested. Since I did not think it prudent to swallow an aspirin, I reached for the bug-shaped mini-vibrator on the table next to Hick's La-Z-Boy. Don't go there. It's a little doodad off the shelf at Walmart. I put two of the feet on my head, and it vibrates that snot loose and relieves the headache. Of course, I have to blow my nose about twenty times, but it's worth it to lose the headache. Sometimes, I also have to apply those vibrating bug feet to my cheek area, and also push the ball of my nose to one side to get proper vibratage. I was doing just that Wednesday morning, when a bug foot slipped past my nose ball and whacked me really hard under my left eye, right on that orbit bone at the top of the cheek.

I have been cautiously peering into the morning mirror to see if I have given myself a shiner. I must have few blood vessels across that thin-skinned bone, because as yet I do not look like I've taken a beating.

That might be hard to explain.

7 comments:

  1. Maybe you should live in a bubble for a few weeks. And yes, the answer is Moops.

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  2. Not going there...trying to think of something else, like was Petey born with that circle around his eye or did he have a vibrator accident?

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  3. Nicked a vein and you are on Coumadin?! Geeze, that's as bad as the dentist who jabbed my jaw vein and swelled my right cheek bigger than an apple and made it turn black.

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  4. joeh,
    Alas, my dad did not drive a YooHoo truck. I know I have my moments, and I demand control of the TV remote, but I would never treat my parents like Donald the Bubble Boy treated his. I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I am a Trivial Pursuit master. I agree with Moops. Gotta go with the card.

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    Leenie,
    Petey will never tell. Mainly because he's six feet under. Funny how subsequent Peteys also had that unusual marking...

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    Linda,
    Not Coumadin, but a newer cousin with a larger advertising budget. My mom's dentist does the same thing. Not so much the swelling, but every time she goes there, she's black and blue for weeks. A colleague said she used to go to him, until he dropped a crown down her throat and she had to hawk it back up on her own. Those things are expensive, you know. Not to mention causes of near-death.

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  5. We used to have a cat named Coumadin ...... I was on Coumadin after a bout of bilateral deep vein thrombosis in both legs, so the kids thought it would be fun to name a kitten after a blood thinner, since that is what rat poison is. Be careful if you sneeze. Don't be surprised if it results in a nose bleed.

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  6. Blame Hick. And if no bruise appears, you can smear on some eye shadow to make it look like a shiner.

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  7. Kathy,
    My teaching friend, Mrs. Not-A-Cook, had a cat named Newman, because her boys loved Seinfeld. I don't think sneezing caused her to want to deliver mail on Sunday, while whistling merrily.

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    Sioux,
    Hick just lends himself to blaming. Hick/blame...it's like peanut butter and jelly.

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