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When you get your own website, two things happen:
1. You become extremely important.
2. You get to find out how many people visit your website.
So whenever I want, I can access something called awStats (and I like to think the "aw" comes from my initials, but I actually think it's more like an "ah." Like, "Ahhhhhh, s**t. It's stats time." Math majors say that exact phrase before every statistics class). Thanks to awStats, I know that over a dozen people were very pissed off yesterday because they went to my website and found out that I hadn't posted a new column. It was still the same lame story about the various cars I've owned.
To those people, I'm sorry. One person was so irate that she emailed me to make sure that my head was okay. I'm fine, Mom.
Actually, her concern for my head was well founded because I'm recovering from a concussion that I received on Sunday. It resulted in a small amount of grogginess yesterday, but more importantly, the blow to my head triggered a reaction in my Lethargy Gland, which releases an enzyme that tells the brain to skip class, eat pizza, and watch Reno 911 all day. As a result, no column on Monday. So I'm making up for it with today's column, which is mostly about the fact that I didn't write a column yesterday. (If you're not satisfied with a column about not writing a column, tough. It's free and there are no pop-up ads, so stop complaining.)
Allegedly (and I have to use that word because my memory is a little hazy) the head injury happened with about three minutes left in a lacrosse game in Syracuse. I banged heads with somebody on the other team and my helmet resonated with a ringing tone for about a minute but I thought I was fine. It wasn't until after the game when I was walking to the locker room that I realized that I didn't know why I was holding a lacrosse stick. And I didn't know why I was wearing a uniform and I didn't know where I was. It was at this point that I interrupted whoever it was that was talking to me and told them that I thought I was concussed.
I was then instructed to talk to a trainer. The trainer asked me where I was and I guessed correctly (whenever you don't know which city you're in, guess "Syracuse." It worked for me.) but then he gave me three words to remember. I was supposed to take a shower, go to the training room and then repeat those same three words. He said something like,
Giraffe
Propeller
Orange
He asked me if I could remember those words. I nodded.
"So just repeat it out loud so I know you have it right," he said.
"Repeat what out loud?"
"The three words."
"Which three words?"
He told me I had to go to the hospital after I changed.
It was a good thing that I had my teammates around because they helped make sure I didn't forget anything. Actually, they weren't helpful at all. They decided they would rather mess with me. One of my teammates asked to borrow my soap and then when I asked for it back he told me that it wasn't my soap and I said, "Oh. That's weird. I have the same soap dish and I use the same shampoo." Now I don't have any soap or shampoo.
Another teammate asked me if I remembered that my girlfriend broke up with me. I thought for a second, vaguely remembered having a girlfriend, but couldn't remember her breaking up with me.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"Wow. I don't remember that at all. That sucks."
A little later I found out he was making a joke. And of course, now my girlfriend is mad at me because I didn't start crying.
Later, when we were about to board the bus, they told me that I was gay.
"Do you remember that?" they asked.
"No."
I thought for a moment. I definitely wasn't gay. I would remember being gay. And if I was gay, why did they tell me I had a girlfriend who had broken up with me? Maybe she broke up with me because I was having an affair with the governor of New Jersey. But by this time, I was feeling a little less woozy and I was sure that my teammates were lying.
But it did give me a good idea for a movie. It would be like The Bourne Identity. Actually, it would be exactly the same as The Bourne Identity, with Matt Damon still getting picked up in the middle of the Mediterranean, not knowing who he was or where he came from. He still has all those awesome spy moves and he still has all those haunting memories of killing people, but he also has random flashbacks of gay sex scenes. The entire movie he's waking up in a cold sweat, sometimes because he remembers assissinating someone, sometimes because he's remembering having sex with another guy. But here's the twist: he doesn't feel gay. He feels completely heterosexual.
There must be an example of this actually happening somewhere in the annals of medical history.
Anyway, I went to the hospital and they put me through all sorts of tests. The first test was to successfully take off my clothes, put on one of those hospital gowns that's made to cover exactly one half of your body (you can pick either the front or the back) and then wait forty-five minutes without wrapping an IV tube around your neck out of boredom. I passed the test, but just barely. Then they walked me down the hall (my apologies to anyone who was behind me and had to see the uncovered half of my body) to the cat scan room. If you've never received a cat scan, it's a pretty weird experience. You lie on your back and you go through a big circular white thing that shoots laser beams through your head. It's actually equipment left over from the set of Stargate so I'm pretty sure my head was in a different universe when it was getting scanned. Kurt Russell and James Spader know what I'm talking about. While I was getting my head scanned, I decided that there are very few worse times in life to get an erection. I feel sorry for anyone who's had to go through that.
The cat scan results were fine. I didn't have any blood or fluid in my brain. They said I could leave the hospital and gave me a sheet of paper with instructions for taking care of myself. According to these instructions, I'm supposed to go to an emergency room if:
- I vomit more than 2-3 times. (So basically, I should go to the hospital if I throw up four times in twenty-four hours. Isn't that what "more than 2-3 times" means? Shouldn't you always go to the hospital if you vomit four times, regardless of whether you've just received a head injury?
- Mental confusion, restlessness, or personality changes. (Like, for example, suddenly realizing you're gay.)
- Increasing weakness, sleepiness, blackouts, or seizures. (Once again, do I really need a piece of paper to tell me that I should go to the hospital if I'm having blackouts and seizures?)
- A clear or bloody drainage from the nose or ear. (Um, thanks. I'll be sure to look out for that.)
Knock on wood, I haven't had any of those symptoms. Although I did burn the roof of my mouth on the pizza I ordered because of damage to my Lethargy Gland. So that's kind of a concussion-related problem I guess.
Anyway, this is basically a long apology letter. Sorry for not posting a column yesterday. It won't happen again. Unless I get hit in the head with a bowling ball or something. I'm feeling much better now; thanks to all of you that were concerned. I'm almost completely back to normal. I just have occasional flashbacks, but don't worry. I won't go into the details.
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