It could have been worse

I had so many people ask me about my Facebook post last week of going to Urgent Care during our vacation that I decided to share the story here.

 

Amy, Hannah and I got up at 5:00 a.m. last Wednesday, May 22 to catch our Sun Country flight to Seattle.  We hit traffic going south on 35W that caused us anxiety about catching our flight.  Thankfully we didn’t encounter a line at security (how often does that happen?) and made the flight.

 

When we got to Seattle we rented a car and made the almost four hour trip to Salem, Oregon where we were visiting Greg Hansen, a long-time friend of mine.  Greg wanted to go to a high school baseball game, so we trekked over to the big town of Monmouth, Oregon, on the campus of Western Oregon University.

 

I watched the game for a bit, talked to some of Greg’s friends, and saw Greg’s boys play catch.  I walked over and started playing catch with his oldest son.  I was approximately 70 yards on a diagonal from home plate turned away from the game.

 

Someone yelled, “ball.”  I turned my head and had the right side of my face smashed by a foul ball.  I had no chance.  I didn’t see the ball, didn’t know the ball was coming, and would have done better if I hadn’t turned.  My glasses went flying, and I bent over to nurse my cheek.  Fortunately I only received a large gash on my cheek bone.

 

My friends thought I should go to Urgent Care.  After some conversations about where to go we trekked off to Dallas, Oregon.

 

As soon as I got to Urgent Care the nurses gave me an ice pack—see above picture.  I was there for about ninety minutes.  The doctors confirmed that I didn’t have a concussion, and they only needed to put banana strips on the wound to keep it together.  What concerned them most was my resting pulse of 37; however after telling them I was a runner they calmed down.

 

I’m fortunate and take solace in the classic Minnesota phrase, “It could have been a lot worse.”