On Friday morning, one of my co-workers told me, “Cynthia, you are the most accident-prone person I know.”
Actually, I’m not accident prone at all. But when I do have one, I go all out. Either it is going to be huge (like last January when I broke my jaw in four places) or I am going to end up with a great story to tell. On Thursday, I walked away with a great story.
One of the greatest challenges of being a teacher is being able to get to the bathroom at the right time. We can’t exactly walk out of class when the need arises; we have to plan ahead. This means that many of us are often lined up at the beginning and end of a lunch break, or we rush in and out of the bathroom at the end of a preparation (or planning) time.
Last Thursday, I looked at the clock at the end of my prep time. “Geez! It’s 2:40! I have to be back in class in 5 minutes!” So I darted for the bathroom. When I finished, I got up quickly from the toilet, turned to wash my hands and, somehow, managed to bang my head on the bottom of the medicine cabinet. I fell back into the wall and cried, “Oww!” Something didn’t feel right.
A co-worker checked my head. “No, it’s obviously bumped, but there is no blood.”
As I returned back to class, I was feeling “off”. I headed back downstairs to the main office and begged, “Please, don’t laugh at me.”
Needless to say, there were giggles. Then, after my head was checked, I heard, “Oh my! You’re bleeding.” Within minutes, my class was covered and I was told to sit down. A concussion was the concern and, since it happened in the work place, my incident had to be taken seriously.
While waiting for my husband to pick me up (since I couldn’t drive if I had a concussion), I had to complete typical paperwork. In my case, the questions led to more giggles: How did the incident happen? Were there any witnesses? I can only imagine the reaction of the case worker who will be reading this later. When my administer had to answer “What treatment and precautions were taken?”, I asked her not to make me go through toilet re-training; she wrote that I was told to slow down.
Forty-five minutes later, my husband arrived and we headed to the doctor who determined that it was not a concussion but told me to watch for symptoms overnight. I was relieved as I really did not want to miss school the next day.
The next morning, a co-worker asked if I was okay. “What happened?” asked another. “You know Cynthia! She sprinted from the toilet!”
Yup, that’s exactly what I did – and it’s a sprint that I am pretty sure I won’t be doing again.
I am the accident prone one…I once tripped on my own feet 🙁