Third Time's a Charm; or The Vindicated Anti-social

***Warning: this post contains a bit of gore. Proceed with caution.***

My first trip to the emergency room was when I was around the age of ten. It was dark and I was chasing my cousin Sam around my grandma's tree. I didn't see the bird bath hanging from a low branch and ran right into it. It cut the skin next to my eye, so we slapped a washcloth on it and went to the ER. The doctor insisted that stitches weren't necessary because it wasn't going to scar. In the end he was wrong, but I didn't mind much at the time because I had successfully avoided being prodded repeatedly with a needle.

My second trip to the emergency room was when I was about 17. I was slicing an apple while at Girls' Camp and the knife slipped, making a thin but deep incision at the base of my index finger. I went in search of a bandaid, but when one of the men supervising the camp saw the blood and came to investigate, he insisted I be taken for stitches. The camp nurse cleaned and bandaged the cut and we set off back toward civilization where we met my mom at the ER. When the doctor unwrapped my hand to clean and put in stitches, the cut had closed by itself. The only evidence that I'd had a cut at all was the blood all over the bandages. I was, again, relieved at not having to be sewn back together.

Last night I took my third trip to the emergency room. This time, I wasn't so lucky.

Some people in my ward were gathering to play 'Ultimate Frisbee.' As a general rule, I avoid such gatherings because a) I am an avowed recluse and don't like people, b) I am terrible at Ultimate, and c) I make a point of not doing things I am horrible at in front of other people. I was in my kitchen loading the dishwasher when there was a knock at my door and I received a personal invitation. So I thought, 'What could it hurt? My book can wait....and human interaction might be good for me.' Famous last words...

The frisbee had been thrown approximately once when I collided, face-first, with Frank.* We both stumbled back and I felt something wet and vaguely sticky on my face. Blood.

So the girl who had driven us to the park brought me and Frank back to my apartment. I grabbed my wallet with insurance information, a washcloth and snapped a few pictures before we left for the ER.

About 1.5 hours and five stitches later, I was good to go home. The stitching experience wasn't nearly as terrible as I'd imagined it would be. The worst part was having the side of my face get numbed. I hate being numb.

This is right after I got home. Some of the stuff they injected me with made my eyelid swell so much that it was pretty hard to open my eye. Also, I think that a lot of the 'bruising' in this picture is probably just smeared makeup.

Here's what it looks like this morning.

Still a little puffy, but definitely not as colorful.

A silver lining from this experience: my girls are going to think I'm so tough at practice tonight.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also, he apologized like 5 million times, so it wouldn't really be fair to demonize him on my blog.