Yesterday, I was at Marin General and it made me start reminiscing about all the times I’ve been to the hospital/emergency room. Here are all my personal trips to the ER (not counting when I accompanied someone else), as I can think of them:
- Shattering my teeth in the mall parking lot (a classic, obviously)
- Biting through my lip when I accidentally slammed a weight-lifting bar into my face — which was also a key part of my Best Week Ever
- Knocking out my front tooth in college at a pick-up soccer game
- Hitting a curb and my bike in my first-ever mini-practice triathlon, which caused a concussion and a not-a-seizure
- Passing out in the training room in high school, after getting hit in the face with a medicine ball, and having a not-a-seizure
- (I can’t remember if we actually went to the emergency room or just to the doctor either 1. the time I slept-walked in the middle of the night in high school and dove off my bed into my bookshelf and then went back to sleep, or 2. the time I passed out from some weird combination of cold winter running/hot tub/shower, and hit my head on the kitchen floor when I fell. I do know that all those times prompted a whole rash of tests and visits to the Children’s Hospital.)
- Falling off the slide in 5th grade (I think) and having a not-a-seizure
- When they thought I had appendicitis in 3rd grade and were all set to take out my appendix, but then I mysteriously got better; memorable because we took a cab to the emergency room, which was the first time I’d ever been in a cab and it was quite exciting
- Getting my thumb slammed in a door as a kid, and we weren’t sure if it was broken or not
- Jumping off a pool backwards and slamming my chin into the cement — also the only time I’ve had to get stitches (which got infected and then I had to get more stitches)
I feel like I’m missing one and, obviously, there were plenty of other accidents and injuries that didn’t warrant an emergency room visit. But, as you can see, when I say I don’t need to go to the ER and it would be pointless, I know of what I speak.