Tiffany’s fall

Today was pretty trying – Tiffany has fallen again, and once again could not get up.

This morning Shelly was looking for my parents' loading ramps for their quads. She needed them to load my parents' quads so she can go riding with me tomorrow. These ramps are very big, and not very easy to lose; Shelly could not find them. I had borrowed them a couple years ago, but was certain I returned them.
After receiving several calls from Shelly, I finally called Tiffany to see if she remembered where they were. Tiffany thought that we still had them, and that they were leaning against the side of the garage. I asked Tiffany to walk outside and look to see if they were there; Tiffany didn't want to go. She said she would fall. I told her that was ridiculous – all she had to do was walk down the driveway and onto the sidewalk. She never had to leave the pavement. Finally, she agreed to look for the ramps.

I left my desk and went down into the shop. While I was discussing some necessary rework with a couple machinists, my phone started ringing off the hook. At first it was Shelly, and then Tiffany . . . I told the machinist the story about how they just wouldn't leave me alone about those ramps, and continued discussing technical stuff, ignoring the phone.

After four or five minutes of receiving nonstop calls and texts, I finally got a chance to duck into a lab; only then did I see Tiffany's latest text message: "911 CALL ME". Of course, I called, then ran out the back door, jumped in my truck, and started flying home. On the way home I called my boss and told him what had happened, and that I might be out for the rest of the day. I then turned my fifteen minute commute into a ten minute drive.

When I got home I found Tiffany sitting in the house with blood all over her face, hands and shirt. There was a lot of blood. Most of it appeared to be coming from her nose, but there was a large abrasion under her nose. Both lips were cut. There was a lot of blood on her hands, so I did not know whether or not they were bleeding. She said her teeth hurt, but I did not immediately see any obvious dental damage. Her glasses were sitting next to her, and the lenses had been ground away by the concrete. She said she was certain that her foot was broken, her nose was bleeding and swollen up several times its normal size, and her left pinky hurt.

Our neighbor had seen her fall and come to help her. Somehow he got her electric scooter out of the van then helped her on it and into the house. From there, she said she was fine and that I was on my way, so he went home. Without cleaning her up, I rushed Tiffany to the van to go to the Urgent Care Clinic. She was asking for pain medicine and cloths to clean up the blood – I didn't give her pain medicine because I wanted the doctor to be able to give her something good, and I didn't want to waste time on cleaning up the blood.. Before we left, my mother and a couple of my sisters showed up; I think one of them gave Tiffany a damp cloth for the blood as we were pulling out of the driveway.

Because we had been there in the past, we went straight to the Urgent Care Clinic on Fourth Plain, next to Bi-Mart. The office was empty, with a sign saying they had moved to Vancouver Mall. We drove to the new clinic at Vancouver Mall and wheeled Tiffany inside. To my surprise, the Urgent Care Clinic said that they would not treat her. Here she was, in pain and bleeding all over their office . . . insurance card in hand, and they would not treat her because I had not grabbed her purse on the way out the door, so she did not have photo ID. I had our insurance card, I had my ID, I had membership cards with both our names on them, but nothing with her photo. And they refused service – they said that I should go home and come back with her ID, and that they would treat her when I returned. When I made an empty threat to call an ambulance and sue them for the bill, the receptionist offered to "ask her supervisor"; finally, they "made an exception this time".

While waiting to see the doctor, Tiffany noticed that she had a couple huge bumps on the top of her foot.

When we finally got to see the doctor, the service improved only marginally. The medical staff did nothing to clean or dress any of the flesh wounds. They X-Rayed Tiffany's foot and hand, and found nothing broken. As I was looking over the doctor's shoulder, I saw a giant diagonal crack across Tiffany's fibula and asked about it. The doctor asked Tiffany if her leg hurt – Tiffany said no, and the doctor said that it must just be a blood vessel or something. The clinic did not X-Ray her nose because they said they lacked the expertise; based on a physical exam, they do not believe her nose is broken.

The final recommendation was for us to see what her nose looks like after the swelling goes down, and to follow up with an appointment in a week. We plan to see Dr. Hughes, Tiffany's general practitioner, in a week, and will probably ask for a new set of X-Rays.

When we got back to the van, we realized that Tiffany's nose was still bleeding (not bleeding again . . . STILL bleeding), and that the clinic had done absolutely nothing to dress any of the flesh wounds. I started to go back in to get a Band-Aid, but then stopped . . . there was a long line in the reception area. We ended up stopping at a pharmacy on the way home to buy big Band-Aids. Ridiculous!

Tiffany took her prescription pain medicine, changed her shirt, and we dressed her still-open wounds. I stopped by work for a few minutes, and then we picked up Alex at school together. Before he saw Tiffany, I explained to him that she had fallen again and hurt her face this time. At first he was upset that we had to go to the hospital. When I explained that we had already taken care of that, he was fine. As long as HE didn't have to go with us.

After we went to the Optometrist to order a new pair of glasses, Tiffany said she wanted to eat something fattening, so we all went to Red Robin for dinner.