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Best Week Ever #14 & 15: Surprises

May 4, 2009

The past two weeks have been somewhat…surprising.

During week 14 I signed a lease for my first apartment and took a random road trip to Pease, Minnesota to pick up my new dog, Harley-Scalia Jansen.

Moving in was a painfully slow process because of classes, work, and the furniture situation: I only rented a single room at the Gamma house so I had to buy and assemble most of the furniture for the apartment. And assembling furniture is not¹ my forte…

I spent that weekend lugging boxes up the stairs and got the big pieces (couch, bed) done. Good thing too because on Sunday I caught a bullet in my back…

Week #15 started and ended in the ER.

I was shot Sunday, slept Monday (since I was up all of Sunday night) and then went back to school on Tuesday.

ATL picked up the shooting story, so I got to sit in class on Tuesday and watch people read about the hole in my side on their laptop screens.²

Last week was a case study in Minnesota chaotic: over the weekend there was a riot in Dinkytown (where the Gamma house is), a shooting threat that shut down part of campus, and a cyclist run over one street over from the Gamma house.

Thankfully all I had to worry about was dressing my wounds, getting new property handouts, and walking the dog:

A dog walk is what sent me to the ER the second time – Harley lunged after a squirrel in the park and the leash jerked me so violently that the bullet shifted to a new, painful position.

After six or seven hours of neglect I was finally metal-free. I feel like a B-list celebrity in a Jenny Craig commercial who says “I feel lighter than ever before!”

Yes. Thanks to the new Bullet-X plan…zap that metal in your mid-section!

Although I’m actually not lighter than ever before because my running schedule was completely annihilated by “the whole getting shot thing.”

I’m going to let the stitches and the gunshot wound heal for a few more days, and then I’m back to training. Vöt!

¹Yes, that was me strangling my Ikea instruction sheet in the middle of night going “ARGG!” The dog would wake up, roll his eyes, fart, then go back to sleep.

² THAT wasn’t awkward at all… what was awkward however was that kids from Section Fail (who we have crimlaw with) were plotting to piss me off so I would write about them…who does that? Hi.

1L Spring Finals / dogs

Goodbye Bullet

May 3, 2009

I taught myself future interests in the ER today.

Phillip and I walked Harley-Scalia in Loring Park this afternoon. Harley saw a squirrel, lunged forward, and sent me flying for few steps.

Harley’s lunge was so powerful that it moved the bullet that is lodged in my side. Beforehand the bullet didn’t hurt at all, and was just slightly sensitive to the touch. Now the bullet stuck out dramatically and was very painful.

I called the hospital and they told me to come in.

I waited in the ER for about four hours. There was a guy around my age who looked like he got the lower part of his ear burned off. He was seen after about three and a half hours.

There were a lot of cough-masks at the hospital, but they sent the possible swine-flu cases in a separate waiting room.

While waiting, I ignored the homeless man next to me (who babbled and drooled in his sleep) and tried to concentrate on some estates & future interests problems. After a few hours I gave up and started watching Legally Blonde, which was playing on the waiting room TVs. Before law school I never noticed how odd that movie is. Maybe I missed something, but I’m pretty sure 1Ls do not get to participate in high profile murder trials, even at Harvard.

After four hours I noticed that the nurses were calling people who came in after me. I walked up to the triage and the nurse said, “Oh, we had a shift change and you’ve been here longer than anyone in the entire hospital! You should be next…”

Well, dandy.

Twenty minutes later I’m in an examining room. The doctor comes in, greets me, and then asks me to show him the gunshot wound.

The doctor was not listening to me. He immediately pulled back the dressings on the bullet wound and then told me that he didn’t see the bullet.
Me: “Well, it’s over here on my side. It really hurts and I think it’s pushing against my ribs…”
What does the doctor do? He says, “Oh I see” and then POKES THE BULLET.

It hurt. Bad. I was livid.
Doctor: “We can probably take it out. Let me talk to some other doctors and get back to you.”
My eyes are watering up with pain and ask him where the restroom was.
Doctor: “Around the corner. You should probably take your backpack with you.”
I should have left my backpack in that room because when I came back they had a car accident victim set up in the room.

A nurse told me to sit on a stool in the hallway. I sat in the ER hallway for about 15 minutes and talked to a bouncer from Blaine who got hit in the back with a bat during a bar brawl…

When the bouncer left and I got his room.

I then sat there, side throbbing, wincing in pain and cursing the doctor’s name.

The doctor eventually shows up, stabs me with an anesthetic, cuts me open, and removes the bullet.
Doctor: “Oh this looks like a 44. Most people get shot with 9s. That’s the gangster’s choice apparently.”

Me: “I thought they said it was a small bullet…”

Doctor: “Hm. Maybe it got deformed when it got in. The area around the bullet looks infected. Maybe that’s why it is hurting…”

Me: “Great.”

Doctor: “Oh wait, it doesn’t smell. That means it’s probably not infected.”

Me: “It’s nice not to smell.”

Doctor. “Yeah. I’ll make the stitches loose just in case. If it gets infected we’ll just remove the stitches so it can drain.”

Me: “Another day the glamorous life of a law student…”
The doctor dug around for any more bullet fragments, which felt disgusting. I felt like a victim from SAW, cue the Billy puppet… The doctor then sewed me up and said he would come back with my paperwork.

I waited for about 15 minutes and another nurse kicked me out of the room. A bleeding construction worker was wheeled in as I left. I sat at that stool in the hallway again for about 20 more minutes. I checked my watch and saw that it was 7:15pm. I had arrived around 1pm. I decided that I was allowed to play crabby patient. and went to the little doctor’s station and asked if they could mail the discharge papers to me.
Nurse: “Oh, we forgot all about you! What’s your name again? I’ll print the papers for ya…”
Quality care right there…I finally left the ER after six hours, stitches oozing…but grateful that the bullet is gone.