Four Staples

As has already been established, Andy works strange shifts. Since he hadn't gone in until 6pm last night, I knew I would be going to sleep without him. It never really gets easier, and that deployment habit of sleeping with the telephone never dies, but by a little after one I was curled up in bed with a book, just starting to nod off. Suddenly, I heard Andy's ringtone start singing to me from the Blackberry. You know it isn't going to be a good conversation if he calls you at 1am. Especially if the first words out of his mouth are "I just wanted to give you a head's up...."

It seems that the "crew chief killer" had finally gotten a bite out of him. It is a unfortunately placed antennae that many a good man has fallen to. He knew he was in trouble when he hit his head, reached up to grab it and the blood had already soaked through his beanie hat.

He insisted on finishing the inspection he was in the middle of, and signing off on all that paperwork, since they had already had someone leave the shift sick that night. After that his boss insisted that he go to the hospital. One of his buddies drove his truck down for him, and caught a ride back to work with another guy. So Andy just sat in the ER by himself, got his head inspected, stapled, and ushered back out the door. He doesn't complain - he's a big tough manly man, but he did say it was really annoying when the doctor put the first staple in (with no pain killer of any sort) then decided she "didn't like the look of it" and pulled it back out. Four staples later, he drove himself home, finally got to take meds (they gave him Percocet) and crashed into a deep slumber. Unfortunately, it was 3:30 by the time it was all completed. No matter how tired I was before the first call, it is really hard to snuggle down and go to sleep when you are waiting for the next call! Besides, he was afraid for a few minutes that they were so shorthanded at work that I was going to have to wake the kids up and come get him to take him to the hospital! (He thought he could drive fine, but the higher-ups didn't want that on their conscience) Luckily they let him drive home from the hospital... I really didn't want to drag two children out in the middle of the night if I could help it!

I am proud of him for calling me. It was late, and he probably didn't have to. I suppose I should wish that he hadn't, so that I could have gone to sleep and missed the whole adventure. But, last time he was injured at work he didn't call me. When we were stationed at Beale he got a "Dragon bite" - very similar to the wound last night actually. He thought he would just wait and tell me after it was all over. Get the stitches, the paperwork filled out, all the hoops you have to go through when you are injured on the job in the AF. Unfortunately for him, it was a small base, and some people choose to go home for lunch, tell their wives about what was going on at work, and those wives call other wives....

By the time he got home I was so incredibly worked up about what exactly had happened to him, and how seriously he was hurt, and the fact that I knew next to nothing. Truly, he wasn't hurt that badly. I think that one might have been 5 staples. But he was in BIG trouble for scaring me to death. I guess last night proves that he learned his lesson.

Always tell the wife before you head to the ER. Just in case someone else is going to have a chance to tell her first.

I literally fell asleep with the phone gripped tightly in my hands a couple of times last night, but by the time he finally got home, I was wide awake. I had to see the wound, and take care of my baby just a little bit. Now I am exhausted. I think I will be calling it an early night tonight. Andy took his Percocet to work with him, on the hope that they will be fully manned and he can do a non-essential job and take pain killers. But he wasn't holding his breath. Which means he is going to be in pain all night, and thus g r u m p y tomorrow. I'm thinking that a full eight hours is sounding more and more like a good idea.

But just in case, I'll keep the phone close by. You never know when it's going to start singing his song...