DanJournal: Crisis of Cranium Crackage part one

To kick off my new website I thought I'd bring back in all it's glory the Danjournal that was responsible for giving me the moniker of Smashed Head. I'll be going back through these Danjournals and editing and cleaning them up, plus adding small bits of artwork when time is permitted. I hope you enjoy the new and improved Danjournals, so without further ado on with our star attraction... Which is tougher? A thick piece of metal shot like a cannon with 20 tonnes of pressure behind it or Danny's skull?

Well dear readers on my constant quest to solve all your conundrums I have gone and field tested this one mythbusters style and will now present to you my finders in a little piece i like to call...

Danjournal: Crisis of Cranium Crackage!!!

 February 13, 2010

9:10 am

I arrive at work 10 minutes late.

9:11 am

Lovingly stare at my cookies in the seat next to me (These cookies are crucial to the story later, remember them as they were ... delicious, chewy and tasty) and give my dashboard hula girl a little tap to get her dancing before I leave the car.

9:12 am

No one else is at work so my late-ness goes unnoticed, Boo-Yahh! Great start to what is sure to be a wonderful day.

9:45 am

after some clean up and prep I decide to work on the big gravel hauling truck we have in the shop. We need to remove a bushing from the suspension and it won't budge. So I've farmer rigged a push system using a 20 tonne jack, a thick piece of plate metal and some chains. The System works good I begin pushing the piece out while feeling like a modern day MacGyver, nothing can stop me!

10:00 am

The bushing has been stopped. I grab a torch and crawl under the truck in order to heat the piping and loosen it up.

Genius!

10:15 am

Something has sparked real pruddy like and sent a glowing hot shard of metal past the safety glasses and straight into my retina .... F@#$!!!

10:30 am

I've managed to roll out from under the truck, still blind in one eye. I've found the first aid kit. There are gauze and bandages (what good are those for!?) but no eye washer, suckage.

10:35 am

spot the hose in the corner.

10:40 am

I am bent over the floor drain spewing the glacier cold contains of the hose directly into my eye cursing the sparks parentage.

11:00 am

The metal fragment has kindly left my eye. I think to myself "well at least I got the worst of the day out of the way" (poor, sweet, naive Dan) just then Mike (My boss) arrives at the shop to see me kneeling on the floor wet of face and red of eye. He jokingly calls me a pussy and tells me to get to work.

11:30 am

Me and Mike have successfully gotten the one bushing free, and have moved my farmer rigged jack thingy to the other side to push out the other bushing. we notice the metal plate we are using to push the pipe out with is slightly bent, we hope for the best and continue on anyways.Things are going well.

11:50 am

Again the piece has gotten stuck and again I've crawled under the truck torch in hand in order to loosen the bushing. This time using a patented squinty technique with my eyes to protect them from oncoming sparks.

11:57 am

I've heated the one side of the metal and re-positioned myself to heat the other side, conveniently making it so that if said pipe I was heating decided to turn into a high powered cannon, my head would be it's primary target. Squinty technique is working wonderfully.

(note the heavy foreshadowing in that last entry)

12:00 pm

BAMMAGE!!!

The Squinty technique! they do nothing!!!

12:00 pm

I don't know where I am, who I am, or what's going on, all I know is that every nerve in my head is on fire desperately trying to 'stop-drop-and roll' but to no avail. There is music playing somewhere. Thinking this is the source of my pain I scream at the top my lungs for someone to shut off the radio.

12:01 pm

I've managed to scramble out from under the truck whilst screaming every known profanity and curse and making up a few on the spot too. I also took the time to properly shut off the torch (Of course the moment I'm leaking life juice from my head is when I take all the safety precautions)

12:03 pm

Mike has come around the truck to my aid with gauze and bandages (Ta-Da!) I ask him whats going on and why does my head hurt. He says it's best you don't know. I then feel him pull my hoodie out from inside my head, I start to realize that maybe this wasn't the music's fault after all .... maybe.

12:06 pm

We've hopped into the car and are on our way to the Tofeild hospital. Mike has phoned my family and let them know what happened. My sister mishears him and thinks I have a metal pipe protruding from my forehead .... and so the rumours begin.

12:15 pm

My hands have gone tingly and my head hurts worse than anything I've ever felt. Mike tells me to stay awake and to tell him a story

"There once was a boy named Daniel whose head was destroyed by a flying hunk of metal, He was in so much so pain due to the gaping wound in his forehead and the unseemly amounts of blood lacking in his body, That he couldn't think of a damn story!!!"

That's what i wanted to say but in truth all I could get out was

"..... ooooh boy ...."

12:30 pm

Have arrived at hospital, mom and dad have made it there as well. The Doc and nurses continually ask me "Did you get knocked out? Or at any time pass out?" To which I promptly reply "No, but I wish I had .... can we knock me out?"

12:45 pm

I'm getting X-rays and have started to go into shock. I'm shaking uncontrollably and heating up fast. I ask the nurses to please cut off my clothes. They smartly refuse, knowing that without my clothing to hide my luminous mayonnaise complexion they'd be drawn to my doughy body like moths to a cheap trailer park porch bug zapper.

1:00 pm

I have returned from x-ray and have begun to throw up blood. I apologize to the nurses and offer to help clean up. They laugh a knowing little laugh and tell me "I think you have bigger worries sweetie" I'm not at my most humorous right now and attempt to glare at them. In my gory state I'm pretty sure it went unnoticed,

curse you bloodied face!!!

1:15 pm

The Doc has frozen my head and cleaned the wound ...... we finally see that I've cracked my skull and now I need to be rushed to the UofA hospital

1:30 pm

I've been gifted a red ball to squeeze during the ambulance ride. He is round, he is squishy, he is mine and he is everything to me.

2:30 pm

Arrived by ambulance to UofA, and I'm swarmed by doctors asking me all sorts of questions;

"What's your name?"

"Where are you?"

"What day is it?"

"What happened?"

"Does it hurt here?... Here?"

After answering all of them correctly and letting them know I'm fine other than my head, they stand back a tad baffled by me. It's as if I've answered the meaning of life for them

2:45 pm

Getting prepped for another X-ray and the nurse asks me if I need anything, and i let her know I'm fine but i need to go to the bathroom real bad. She says that's no problem and she'll be right back.

2:50 pm

Nurse passes me a bottle. I stare at her with concern in my eyes ....

"don't worry I won't look" she assures me

2:52 pm

I'm standing naked in a room full of nurses and doctors peeing into a jar. This really prepared me for the lack of shame you need when staying in a hospital for an extended period of time.

3:30 pm

Getting a CT scan of the old brain. For some reason I feel like people will be mad at me for getting this scan and not having a shaved head

4:00 pm

Waiting with my mom, dad and Mike in the ER. I find out Mike drove my car there and remember my cookies! (told you they were important)

I excitedly ask my mom to get them, when Mike laughs and says

"You had cookies in your car... I got hungry"

4:15 pm

Neurosurgeon comes by and explains what happened

"First off you're extremely lucky to be alive, and second extremely lucky that it looks like you have no brain damage. The best we can compare this to is if some really big guy hit you in the head full force with a sledge hammer. You cracked your skull in two places, the forehead and the sinus. Air leaked into your brain from the initial blow but it looks like no more is getting in."

With his pen he points at me "That salty taste in the back of your throat..."

I smack my lips and confirm the salty brine taste

He looks suddenly impressed with his correct assumption " That is brain fluid, that should hopefully stop."

I'm now contemplating how one closes their mouth from the inside to refuse the brain tea being fed to them.

He continues on unabated "We're gonna stitch you up and keep you here for observation to watch for risks and any further complications. If we get real lucky you might sneak by without having to go through surgery. Sound good?"

After all that wonderfully smart information I could only dumbly plead "please make the pain go away"

4:30 pm

Nurse asks me the million dollar question "on a scale of 1-10 how bad is your pain"

Now I wanted to scream "KAJILLION!!!" But I pondered this query for a moment. I was in an unbelievable amount of pain and could barely function, but I didn't wanna over step my bounds. First of all I couldn't discredit the pain of labour with my answer and somewhere I had heard breaking your femur is the worst pain one can feel... But at the same time i wanted the strongest pain relief possible, but on the off chance they gave me a second rate pain killer I'd have some play room to get the fancy drugs. So I finally settled on a 9.

Right answer!

4:45 pm

I'm in La-La land high on pain medication and freezing shots. My neurosurgeon is wearing some ridiculous microscope glasses while stitching me up. I can't help but giggle every time I look up and see these oversized cartoon eyes staring back at me, as if a Looney Tunes character is working on me. He has also positioned himself as my favourite doctor by constantly saying "Oh sugar!"

My brow twitches when he injects the freezing = Oh sugar!

He gets a phone call mid-stitchery = Oh sugar!

He misplaces the cotton swab = Oh sugar!

This Doctor is precious, protect him at all costs

5:30 pm

Finally stitched up and in my new place of residence. The coma ward.

Kinda daunting considering my injury, but at least there'd be good conversation.

6:00 pm

I've been moved from coma to the Trauma ward. GO TRAUMA!!!

7:00 pm

I meet my new nurses who will be taking my vitals and taking care of me. They begin the first questionnaire of many that I will receive at the hospital to make sure I know who I am and where I am. The nurses notice my one pupil is bigger than the other and they call in the head nurse to ask what they should do. A tad worried I ask them "What does that mean?"

"Usually it's a sign that someone was hit very severely in the head"

"Huh ..... Do you think we should check for other side effects of head trauma? Such as a cracked skull or a wound of some sort?"

My sarcasm does not go unnoticed

7:10 pm

asleep

And so ends my first day in the Crisis of Cracked Cranium. As you can see in a match up between a rocketed piece of metal and my head, Dan-O's thick noggin wins out!!! I will not be testing it's resilience in a series of increasing challenges despite the potential views it could bring me.

I'll be updating with the other Crisis of Cranium Crackage episodes as I'm able to finish editing them.