Saturday Night Assault

Normally I’d be writing about Erin’s wedding, posting some photos and saying what I good time I had. Unfortunately, something happened on the way home that night that sort of changed the focus of this blog entry. After the wedding, a few of us decided to go down to the Railway Club for a few more drinks. After it was over, everyone slowly made their way into cabs and headed back home. I was the last guy to get one, so since it was proving difficult to get a cab, I made my way into the store right beside the Railway Club and got some food. After I came out, I overheard three guys bugging three girls, and they obviously weren’t impressed. So I opened by big mouth and made a comment to these guys.

I walked away, and started looking for a cab again. Apparently the guys felt like my comment cost them the chance to get together with these three girls, so they came up to me and started harrassing me. Two of the guys seemed reasonable and I thought I could talk my way out of it, but the third guy seemed pretty bent on having a fight. So, while I was basically getting ready for the third guy to hit me, guy number four appeared out of nowhere and cracked me in the head. The rest is sort of a blur to me, but somehow the guy ended up smashing me through a window and I ended up on the ground covered in blood. Just when I thought it was over, one of the four guys (I never saw who) decided head kick me point blank in the face, and put me out of my misery.

The next thing I really remember, besides being completely shocked that he kicked me in the head, was a group of people helping me up and walking me over to an ambulance. I was a bit spaced out at this point, having never have been in a fight before (not that this was much of a fight really, since I didn’t even see that guy coming). I remember feeling bad that I couldn’t take the names and numbers of the people who helped me to thank them later.

I spent the night in St. Paul’s hospital being looked after by several doctors. The journey into the glass cost me several stitches to my nose and the top of my head. After several x-rays and a CT scan, it was determined that the kick to my face also fractured my orbital bone (under my eye) in three different spots. Once the doctors explained to me that the face fracture would probably require immediate surgery, I called my sister back home and told her to let everyone know what had happened.

An hour or so later, Mark showed up and hung out with me in the hospital for a while, and Chris came by a while later and brought me a coffee. At this point, my left eye was completely swollen shut and purple, and the left side of my face had gotten rather puffy. My dad and step-mom arrived an hour or so later. I spent the day in hospital with friends and family by my side. To help with the pain, they hooked up an IV and started giving me morphine, which basically caused me to sleep on and off for most of the day.

Around supper time the plastic surgeon finally got to look at the results from the CT scan, and said that it looked a little better than they had originally thought that none of the fractures were complete, so the bone was still intact. Unfortunately, with this type of injury, the bone can sometimes shift, causing the eye to sit a little differently than it’s supposed to. I have a meeting with a plastic surgeon on Friday to take a look at me and decide if surgery will be necessary to reset that orbital bone or place a small shint under it to realign it.

So, Sunday evening I made my way back to Chilliwack with my dad and step-mom to be looked after for a while. I fell asleep around 8pm and woke up at around midnight in a lot of pain. The doctor prescribed some heavy duty painkillers so I popped one of those and went back to bed.

My face and eye are really swollen, and I hardly recognize myself in the mirror right now. The good news is that I can see a bit out of my left eye right now, since the swelling has gone done a bit. The main nerve for the left side of my face goes past that bone, and is probably slightly injured due to the kick, and right now I can’t really feel much of that side of my face. Hopefully once the swelling goes down I’ll regain some sensation again.

I’m going to take things a day at a time and slowly recover from this. It’s pretty unfortunate that this happened, but bad luck has to happen to everyone once and a while. If all goes well, the only remnant of this night will be a small scar on my nose.

It’s weird what an event like this makes you go through in your head. I remember rolling over sometime after the kick in the head, and realizing I was still somewhat conscious. The first thing I did was run my tongue along the inside of my mouth and counted teeth. When I got into the ambulance, I was so thankful for the people who helped me, still hovering outside, watching the door close and me take off. In the hospital, I went through the full gamut of emotions. I was pretty logical and methodical about everything at first. Even when they announced they’d have to open my face and do surgery, I remember just saying a little prayer, hoping that I’d be ok. While getting my CT scan, I realized I was still wearing my shirt and my tie, both soaked in blood. The first thought I had was that if my mom saw me in those, she’d probably break into tears right away, so I took them off and asked Mark to throw them away before she got there. When my dad showed up, that was the first time I wavered, because I could hear the wobble in his voice when he first saw me, came up to me and held my hand. I’ve had a few periods of ups and downs, knowing that there are still a few hoops to go through before I’m ok again, and also that one of the possibilities with a zygomatic tripod fracture is that in small percentage of the people the loss of sensation on that side of the face can be permanent. But like I said, one day at a time.

Thanks to everyone who called me during the day yesterday, or who stopped by the hospital. It really meant a lot to me waking up periodically in the hospital and seeing a group of friends and family around my bed. Moving my eyes is pretty painful right now due to the swelling, so I probably won’t be on the computer much for a few days. I took photos while in the hospital using my cell phone (I had nothing better to do for four hours or so), and have been taking them once or twice a day since. So, when this is all over, I’ll have a nice collection of injury photos to add to my collection.

If anyone is interested, here’s a picture of a tripod fracture (which is what I have).. You can see how the cheekbone is broken in three places (although apparently mine hasn’t come loose like in this photo).