concussion

No not me. I've never had a concussion that I can remember (that was a joke, get it?). So we headed out to see Blank & Jones on Saturday night. Aside from the fact that, looking at the crowd you'd think it was a creepy guys' and obese women's convention, it was a good party. Good old fashioned progressive, none of the dark bass-heavy stuff or weird trip hop. We went with a friend who went to roam around on his own for a while. We found him again at almost 3am leaning against the bar casually. He was touching his lip which was swollen. Turned out that someone sucker punched him on the dancefloor. He couldn't remember why or what the guy looked like or whether or not he fell to the floor. Obviously this happened without security noticing and no one coming to his resuce since he was standing around by himself in a daze. He had a missing tooth, a chipped tooth and a top tooth that had been pushed in by this guys fist (or bottle or whatever it was). Worst of all he had no memory of what happened. We left the club and he found his tooth in his pocket. He couldn't find his car key and then found it in a pocket and I took it from him. From there, he asked a list of questions every 2-5 minutes:

- hey how'd you guys find me?
- do you have my tooth?
- I can't find my key, does someone know where it is?
- how did I get here, did I drive?

I figured these were classic signs of a concussion (good old first aid training) and we took him to the hospital on Hyde. He went looking for the bathroom which was locked so we took him to a different one at the other end of the hallway. A few minutes later he had to go to the bathroom again and had already forgotten where it was and kept trying the bathroom with the locked door.

After a long wait and answering the same questions over and over again the doctor saw him. He got his vitals checked, got a tetanus shot, some Motrin and a prescription for some more pain killers. The tooth could not be saved. I knew you are supposed to put it in milk but we didn't exactly have that so I thought putting it in water would be the next best thing. Apparently that is not the case. (water is too much, put it in a wet napkin or your mouth eeeew). The patient in the next bed came in by ambulance for what I'm guessing is a meth overdose. He got impatient waiting for the doctor, stood in the middle of the room and started to cry. Then he put his trench coat on without first putting on his shirt, and wandered right out the emergency room door. The hospital staff didn't even bat an eye. He never came back. Meanwhile we got instructions to take our friend home and wake him up every two hours and to bring him back if he starts to puke a lot or walk wobbly, neither of which were the case when we checked in. Phew. Our friend is okay given the circumstances but now does not remember ever being at the hospital.

What a Saturday night. We spent Sunday laying on the couch and watching 24 on Tivo.