WARNING: The following blog post is not for the squeamish.
There is graphic material with some bloody images towards the bottom that may make some readers
feel uncomfortable. If you are here just to see the photos, then scroll down, be lazy and have a good day. Cheers.
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt just
completely embarrassed, but because you were surrounded by children, no one
really noticed?
Let me explain.
When I leave my office at
The National, I usually walk a
block or two to meet my ride, catch the bus or
hail a cab. During this mundane
journey, I occasionally run into a gang of neighborhood kids who are usually playing
soccer or cricket.
When they recognize me, they start calling out some nickname
for me so I will play with them. I suspect the nickname is probably an insult
in Arabic, because they tend to giggle afterward but it does not bother me. I
was young too once, and even today, I enjoy the social ritual of public
mockery.
On this day, they were kicking the soccer ball around and I
had to throw out some of my moves. They cheered. My respect was restored.
Everyone was happy.
Then the ball strayed into the main road and I ran after it
so the kids did not get hit by a car. I grabbed the ball up, took a step onto the
curb to avoid a passing car and accidentally collided with the corner of a metal traffic sign. Coincidentally, the sign was installed to alert drivers of ‘children
at play’ in the neighborhood.
And when I mean collide, I mean the corner of the sign cut
straight into my head. Like when Caribbean island folk use a dull machete to
slice a hard coconut. My head was the coconut and the corner of the sign was
the sharp object. Yes, immense pain.
Out of anger, I immediately let out monster F-bomb that was
within ear shot of several nearby mosques.
They kids froze. They had probably heard their fathers or
teachers use such forbidden language in the past and knew something was very
wrong.
I tried to calm myself and then just threw the ball back to
them, “See you guys later.”
No other adults had seen the quiet collision. The kids
started playing again as soon as they got the ball back. I felt a strange
tingle on the side of my face and that is when I knew this cut was gushing blood.
A decent amount of blood.
I scurried into a nearby convenience store where the clerk
recognized me. I essentially wanted to blurt out, “I NEED HELP!” but could only
muster a whimpering “Do you have any tissues?” with my hand covering the gash
on my head.
At first, the clerk pointed up toward a tall stack of unopened
tissue boxes. He wanted to sell them to me. Then I took my hand off the wound
and a stream of blood flowed down the side of my face and seeped into my shirt
near my left collar.
He freaked out. The clerk stumbled back a few feet and then scrambled
for his personal tissue stash. I don’t what it is about
tissues here but everyone has them.
After I grab a few to put on the hole in my head, he looks
at me like I’m an alien and does not know what to say. “Thanks,” I say as I
stagger out the door.
Miranda was already on her way to pick me up so I did not really
know what to do for the next 5-10 minutes. I grab a reflection of myself from a
nearby car until an Emirati woman walked up and assumed I was trying to rob her
by looking inside her car. She gave me a second look and then blankly asked, “Oh
my, are you OK?”
I said I was fine and that my wife was on her way. She did
not give it a second thought, got in her car and drove off. Seeing a man
bleeding profusely from his head on the street did not peak her interest.
Miranda arrived shortly after and my main goal was to keep
her calm.
I jumped in the car but she could see something was wrong.
Probably because I had a hand cocooned by bloody tissues stuck to the side of
my head.
“Don’t worry babe,” I said. “Let me just take a shower. I’m
sure I can just wash this off…”
I really thought that. That was my opinion at that exact
moment. I must have been concussed.
After a brief debate, we decided that a visit to the
hospital was next. But where is the hospital? Dammit, we really should get the
GPS in our car updated…
After several U-turns and some white-knuckle driving, we arrived at the
Al Noor Hospital near the Zayed Sports
City complex in a hurry. I had just started to feel a little woozy. Perhaps it was
from the blood loss. Maybe I was just hungry?
Anyway, after we found the ER, which was a mission in
itself, there was a wide range of characters in there waiting for medical
attention. The doctors were overwhelmed. I think from the pure fact that when
your child has a cold, you are not supposed to bring them to the ER and then
demand treatment.
How are you going to deny this wounded man?
I even heard the woman in charge tell a very concerned
Emirati woman holding her sick child, "I am sorry but we have to serve
people based on priorities. Your child has a cold. Do you see that man standing over there, bleeding from
his head? I think he is next.”
Yes! Score one for the regular folks!!
But just as I was gearing up to go behind the ER closed
doors, a female rugby player arrived by an ambulance and was laid up in a
stretcher. She was surrounded by her dirty teammates fresh off the pitch and other
medical staff. She was also gripping her ribs and moaning like death.
I then looked back at my supporting cast. Miranda gently
waved and gave me a smile. “That’s OK, she can go ahead of me,” I said to the
woman in charge.
When I got in the back room, the doctors gave me a quick
look and wasted little time with the diagnosis. “Five stitches, maybe six.”
“And you just wanted to take a shower to wash it off…”
Miranda said, as she shook her head.
“But doc, you won’t have to shave my head, right? I can’t
lose these wonderful locks,” I asked.
The doctor, bald as hell, took solace in my request. “Just a
little bit,” he promised.
They got to work, and shaved just area near the cut. The
rest of the head was spared. Miranda was there to document the procedure even
after some Arab man opened our door and demanded that the doctors ignore me (the guy with the head wound) and
see his daughter, who had coughed three times the night before. Three times!
I have to give it up for the staff at Al Noor that day. Half
of their work involved crowd control and dealing with irate locals, who are
used to having their way. They were very courteous to Miranda and myself and had
us out of there within an hour or so.
Oh, they also prescribed me a plethora of pain killers and strapped
me up with a cool bandage around my head that kind of made me look hardcore.
Like I should not be messed with.
The whole ordeal was very embarrassing and the worst part
was that I could not play for my flag football team the next day. And it was
the playoffs. Sorry, fellas.
For me, it was only
my second ER visit since moving here almost two years ago. Once a year is not a bad average. Hopefully, 2015 will bring better fortune.
Wearing a new red shirt to work that day was an unfortunate omen.
The blood stains did come out after some deep washing and Miranda even said I
could go anywhere I wanted after we left the ER.
Several options came to mind: Fuddruckers, maybe the beach, or perhaps to the nearby ice skating rink (it is literally next door
to the hospital).
Since I had already fulfilled my concussion quota for the day, we chose the only place that really made sense to me at that moment…
