E.R.

It was one of the dumbest questions I'd ever been asked. I'm not faulting the woman who asked it--she was working from a script. And I understood why the question was being asked. They needed to know, though how the quantification would have helped, I don't know; it's not like they were setting a target number for a skill check.

"On a scale of zero-to-ten, with ten being the worst, how much pain are you in?"

Well, what the hell does that even mean, I ask (politely, in so many words, maybe I just said, "huh?"). We're sitting in what's basically a cubicle off to the side in the emergency room at Carolinas Medical Center. I'm in triage, which I consider a good sign since I'm clearly not dying, so I logically have to be in the "no immediate need" category. This woman--nurse or technician or administrator or whatever she is--is going through a script with me: allergies, prior conditions, why are you even here, and on a scale of zero-to-ten how much pain, etc.

"Well," she says, "if 'ten' is the worst pain you've ever been in...."

"Four or five?" I lie. Two weeks later, around three a.m. after surgery the previous day and the nerve block's worn off, I will have a much better idea of what eight-nine-ten feels like. But Saturday night in the E.R.? Well, okay, I'm in pain, yes, so it's obviously not a zero, but is it as bad as I've heard childbirth is? Not so much. So, you know, pick the mean result, right? I feel like I do at the eye doctor, being asked if "three" is better than "four" and is "four" better than "one". I'm going to flunk, aren't I, and it will be all screwed up and my fault.

This is my first time on this side of the E.R.; I've brought friends, shown up during a crisis, but never been wheeled around in a wheelchair and left hanging out to wait. Part of the time I'm sitting next to my buddy, Nate, who was one of the passengers in the Bug; he's looking morose and craggy, with what looks like blood on either side of the bridge of his nose. His mom and stepdad are with us, heroically phoning everyone they can get hold of. Sam is being checked out in the back, at this point we're hearing both her arms are broken, which proves to be mercifully false. (We're also hearing there were nine people in the wreck, which turns out to be off by two.) My Uncle Jess and Aunt Debbie show up, making unimaginably good time from Stanley.

Time passes. My right arm swells up all melon-ey-like, which is something it probably isn't supposed to do. This is the wrist they put the sticker-bracelet around. When they applied it, the wrist wasn't nearly as swollen; I said, "So, this means I can get back in the show, right?" when they put it on, and the nurse didn't laugh. This was my backup joke: my first was, "So this means I can buy beer, right?" which I didn't think would have gone over too well. Perhaps I should have gone with my instincts. Maybe not.

After awhile, I get my own little--what would you call it? Room? Observation area? There's a little examining table with a cushion and I get to put on one of those swank "robes" that leave your ass hanging out (or would've if I hadn't kept my underwear on). Occasionally, I see someone. This experience doesn't exactly horrify: it's Saturday night, which I hear (per Messrs. Taupin and John) is alright for fighting. But seriously, it is Saturday and "Race Weekend" to boot, with some grande hullabaloo going on out at the speedway all weekend (as a friend describes it, lots of people are getting drunk while watching a gaggle of people turn left for several hours; I don't get it, either). I'm not in nearly the shape of, say, the gentleman wandering around my vicinity with some sort of IV on a pole trying to negotiate over his meds (clearly some sort of pharmacist, the fellow continues to insist specifically on certain opiates and generally on more). No, my only problems, really, are that my right leg has started to hurt (like my left hand) and my right arm looks a bit like a balloon animal.

The Powers-That-Be decide I need X-Rays and a CT scan. A wonderful woman who's helping set me up for the CT asks me which part of me is getting the CT scan and when I say the right, she incredulously asks, "The one with the bracelet?" She tells someone to cut it off.

The CT scan makes me feel like David Banner. As in Bill Bixby, not the rapper. Okay, it's not really anything like the chair ol' Bixby irradiates himself with in The Incredible Hulk, still, it conjures it in my brain. I lay in the machine with my arm over my head so it can be scanned; I was under the impression these things were loud, but apparently they aren't any more.

They wheel you back and forth in a wheelchair even if you feel like strolling. I perfectly understand all of the reasons why, but understanding things like legal liability and stealthy traumas doesn't make it any less annoying to a stubborn idjit like yours truly who hates asking for things and clings to illusions of independence like a security blanket. I'll refrain from the self-psychoanalysis here, take it for what it is. They push you back and forth and then you wander around your little area for a few hours in between while doctors get around to your scans and charts.

Don, one of the survivors of the wreck who I've known since junior high, who was taken to a different hospital, shows up with his left hand in a splint to check on those of us who went to CMC. It's a good moment, knowing he's mostly alright.

When they decide something is broken in my wrist, they refer me to Dr. Perlik and send a pretty cool guy down to splint me. When I ask if they can just hack my arm off and fit me with a boss pirate hook, he actually laughs.

The wreck was around eight p.m.; I finally return home around 2:30 a.m.