Mr. Noodle

Mr. Noodle
Mr. Noodle

Saturday, September 15, 2012

The day I should have stayed in bed

No really.

Yesterday morning I woke up thinking that I wasn't rested well enough, I  had been working so hard and I was really tired. I thought I should maybe just cancel my trip up to Duncan to spend the day at Providence Farm and rest up. I started my day feeling a bit grumpy and emotional, which I know I can attribute, at least partially, to PMS.

But as I'm only going to the farm one day a week now, I felt obliged to go and that I would really miss it if I didn't go. I wasn't at all excited about the thing I was going to be knitting that day - someone had requested a neck warmer that basically fit the description of the Bandana Cowl. The yarn the woman had chosen was a boucle yarn in browns and blacks. Boucle. Browns and blacks. UGH. I hate boucle and I will go to great lengths to avoid knitting black. Further, the person wanted it to be quite small so some significant modifications needed to be made to the pattern (requiring counting, maths and other mental acrobatics). By the end of the day it was WAY too big and I wasn't happy with it. I decided to call it a day early, put the thing down, and come back to it next week when I'm not grumpy (I have since decided to rip the thing out and reknit it, which I am confident I can do in a day).

Also, while I was knitting this ugly thing, I felt the beginnings of what I thought was a cold. I had the all over body aches and the pain when swallowing. Great. A cold. I'll head over to London Drugs after and get some Hot Lemon Relief. 

So, grumpy, I left early. I was driving down the gravel driveway on the way to the road and saw a number of people standing around looking at a man, face down in the gravel and seemingly unconscious, having had a seizure and fallen off his bike. There was an elderly woman in the Corolla in front of me, and instead of getting out of her car, she just shouted "tell him to move his bike!" which went ignored by those with more compassion for the man bleeding profusely from his face. I got out right away, with the scene from Wednesday fresh in my mind. One man told me that the cyclist had had a seizure and fallen off his bike and the he (the only witness) had to go. Then he was off. The woman who had called the ambulance on her cell phone handed her phone to me and asked me to talk to the paramedics as she was with a client (accident scenes are rife with inexplicable chaos). She remained at her vehicle with her client, about 30 feet away, and I talked to the paramedic, explaining the scene. Man is on his belly, face in the gravel, blood coming out, he is breathing heavily. Paramedic instructed that the cyclist should not move. Soon people arrived on the scene who knew this man and started calling him by name. Turns out he is mentally challenged and prone to seizures. The cyclist suddenly jerked awake and started flailing about, despite a number of people telling him to hold still. Someone brought a rolled-up towel to put under his head. I was off the phone with the paramedic, gave the phone back to its owner, and the ambulance arrived a minute or two later.

There were three paramedics and they were all asking did anyone see it happen? and no one had. The only actual witness had fled the scene as soon as he could pass off responsibility to someone more willing to take it. Why? Was he in a hurry? Late for work? Had to pee? Or just frightened? It made me irritated that compassion and empathy does not come standard issue in every human.

The paramedics did everything they could to help our man the cyclist, but he was flailing and they had to do a lot of wrangling to get him into the ambulance without having him hurt himself. He was in shock and had not said anything, but his eyes were darting about like a scared animal.

Here's something else that was weird. Once again there was the bicycle to consider. How would it be later restored to its owner once the cyclist went home from hospital? Even though there were a number of people on the scene who knew this fellow, not one of them offered to take his bike and return it to him later. Nobody offered to take it up to the Farm, where I'm sure it would have been kept safe until he could get it back. The paramedics said it would have to be picked up by police.

That's too bad. This man was of a visible minority, and with having special needs, he likely suffers a double stigma. I hope getting his bike back won't be too hard.

Crowd dispersed, ambulance packing up, I returned to my truck (second in a now long string of people waiting to leave the Farm). The grouchy old lady before me still sulking in her car, and I happened to be behind her for much of the way into Duncan. She was driving painfully slow and braked hard if anything moved in her peripheral vision. She was driving all over the road. When it came to the traffic circle, she signaled when she was going in (unnecessary) but not when she was exiting. Given my mood, I wanted to call the RCMP and report her erratic driving.

My drive back to Victoria was thankfully uneventful. Now I had a new accident scene to play itself in the theater of my mind.  I got home, explained to my in-laws that I wasn't feeling well, and plunked myself on the bed. Had an emotional text chat with Dan (as in I was emotional and he got me through it). Went down for a lovely dinner, but then came back upstairs and was in bed by 8:30pm. Got out of bed at 8:12am this morning.

Today has been a weird day because I have felt out of sorts for all kinds of reasons that weren't present yesterday. Maybe rest really was the thing I needed? But then with all that time in bed, I must have moved weird and pinched a nerve in my neck and now I'm doing the whole move-my-torso-when-I-want-to-look-sideways thing. Not awesome. I'm not as grumpy as I was yesterday, thank the heavens! But I did manage to get things in my room a bit more organized, and that always makes me feel better.

I think tomorrow I might actually post about my knitting, as I might just have things to report. Stay tuned.

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