The irony of my situation was not lost on me. A street sign
that said “No Standing Beyond This Point” and had directions to the Emergency
Room caused my visit to the Emergency Room. I gingerly touched my forearm, and
silently prayed it wasn’t broken.
The meteorologists had warned there was a storm brewing, but
the angry charcoal clouds overhead and gusting winds told me as much. As a
result, like everyone else that day, I was in a bit of a hurry to get home. I
was walking towards the parking lot when I saw something move out the corner of
my right eye. Six years of martial arts had instinctively trained me to cover
my head. Next thing I knew, there was a parking sign on my right arm, inches
away from my head and my glasses lay on the sidewalk with one lens missing.
For a split second, everything froze. There was no noise. No
cars honking. No people talking. Just me, and a giant sign resting on my right arm.
Before I even realized what had happened, a man materialized out of thin air
and helped me place it back in the ground. Just when I started to think that
maybe chivalry wasn’t dead after all, he disappeared without a word. A woman
started yelling, “Get the police officer. He’s right there.” Not being able to
see her made seeing where she was pointing to that much more difficult.
I dusted off my glasses and started waving my arms. She did
the same, and the police officer made his way over to us. The next hour was a
blur. I gave the same statement to both the hospital police and the Baltimore
City police, which was then corroborated by an eyewitness - the same woman from
before. They informed me I was to be “fast-tracked”, as I was a member of the
“hospital family” and while escorting me to the ER, they quibbled over whose
jurisdiction a falling hospital sign fell under.
The waiting room was nowhere near as sterile (Spartan?) as
the rest of the hospital and welcomed me with the glow from its soft yellow
light and its warm peach and pink palette. I nervously eyed the woman in the
corner with a hacking cough, the man clutching the armrest of his chair until
his tendons bulged and his knuckles turned white and a lump of sheets in the
middle of the room. And then, the lump moved, revealing an arm glistening with
sweat.
Strange as it may seem, there was slight comfort in the
waiting room. Despite the fact that a sign with directions to the Emergency
Room made me wind up in one, I wasn’t as sick as the rest of them. And just as the policeman had promised, I was
fast-tracked. Even though I was the last person in the room, I was the first
triaged. I heard the groans as I stood up to go inside, and I knew if looks
could kill, I would’ve been dead in the time it took me to stand up completely.
I went to get Xrays right away. I wasn’t forced to take a pregnancy test
prior to imaging and I didn’t get bumped from Xray. I was even able to see the
Xray myself, all in the name of “professional courtesy”.
I returned to the waiting room relieved with the knowledge
that I didn’t have a fracture and nervously examined my pulses and range of
motion in my arm and hand. The physician
in me worried about avascular necrosis of my scaphoid, compartment syndrome of
my hand, and whether my tetanus vaccine was up to date. The girlfriend in me
wanted to update my better half and tell him to have dinner without me. The
daughter in me wondered how to broach a conversation with my mother 4 hours
away without inspiring panic. “Uh…mom? Don’t worry, but I’m in the Emergency
Room right now” didn’t seem like a prudent opening. But, most of all, the human
in me looked around and saw a waiting room full of familiar faces. There was no
comfort for them yet; they were still waiting for answers to burning questions.
They were all someone’s parent, sibling or better half too.
When I left a little later with a brace for my arm, and
discharge instructions that listed my diagnosis as “hit by flying sign” they
were still there. The rumbling in the room was masked by the rumbling in the
clouds. The storm was just beginning.
