Riding in the Rattlebones and wearing the Cone of Shame #writing

At the sweet young age of seventy-two, I make all sorts of calculations as I go through the day. I attempt to cut recipes down to serve only one person but usually fail.

Then I give up and buy single-serve microwave meals. There is less waste, and it’s cheaper. I look for small loaves of bread in the bakery, quarts of oat milk rather than gallons, that sort of thing. That is the usual sort of math people my age do, other than managing the bills. It’s the ordinary trimming down of a once larger food-prep empire.

However, on Friday, as I sat in the emergency room at the local trauma center, I found my bookkeeper brain doing a different sort of math. I had taken my car to be serviced at the Olympia Kia dealership. While walking from the ladies’ room, which was in a separate building, back to the service center, I tripped on a curb.

I suddenly found myself face down on the concrete, in incredible pain. For a few moments, I couldn’t move, but I finally managed to roll onto my back and then sit up.

Then I couldn’t see for the blood that flowed, obscuring my vision.

The fall smashed my glasses and opened a large gash, rearranging my right eyebrow and ringing my head like a bell. I also had several other not-so-good injuries. The people in the sales office rushed to my aid, staunching the gushing wound and calling 911.

I experienced a huge sense of mortality, feeling suddenly very old as I was placed on a gurney with the right half of my face bandaged. Wearing the cervical collar/neck brace felt like the human equivalent of wearing the canine cone of shame.

This experience will lend a bit more understanding as to how I approach writing my characters’ experiences of traumatic injuries.

I did, however, gain a deep understanding of why some folks call the Medic One wagon a “Rattlebones.” The streets here are a bit rough and travelling down the main drag while lying on your back rattles you, the gurney, and the wagon like maracas in a mariachi band.

The EMTs were both kind and supportive. When we arrived at the hospital, they stayed with me until I was booked into triage. After numerous tests, it was determined that I didn’t have a concussion, for which I am grateful.

Via Wikipedia: An emergency medical technician (often, more simply, EMT) is a medical professional who provides emergency medical services. EMTs are most commonly found serving on ambulances and in fire departments in the US and Canada, as full-time and some part-time departments require their firefighters to at least be EMT certified. [1]

I now have a lovely black eye, partly shielded by a white bandage protecting the stitches for a few more days, and a splint that supports my wrist but inhibits movement and makes typing a challenge.

Fortunately, I still had my old glasses. I can still see well enough to read if I use a magnifier, and the distance part of my bifocal lens is still good for driving. I will go to Costco and get another pair of glasses with my new prescription.

So, what sort of math was my confused brain doing in the ER?

• 1 slight misstep for womankind = 1 ride on a gurney in the Thurston County Medic One van, aka the Rattlebones.
• 1 cervical collar whether you need it or not.
• 7 stitches in the right eyebrow, and
• 1 sprained wrist in a splint (possibly fractured, won’t know for a week).

Add in the black eye, numerous bruises and contusions, eight hours in the ER, and the sum total is:

• 1 completely deflated ego.

Yes, technically, I am a senior citizen. But I’m only 72, which, given that most women in my family live well into their 90s, is middle-aged. Mama’s admonitions in my early childhood ring in my ears: “Pick up your feet when you walk and be careful to step up at curbs!”

I should know better.

I DO know better.

But all is not lost. The words are flowing, sort of, and I’m getting them down. I have plenty of microwavable meals and DoorDash to keep me fed.  Everything else that requires mobility/flexibility is doable with a bit of figuring it out.

I suspect I will be healed before I have it completely figured out. That’s the way it is when fate sends us on another spin the Blender of Life.

Credits and Attributions:

Image: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:EMTs loading a patient.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:EMTs_loading_a_patient.jpg&oldid=702262046 (accessed August 10, 2025).

[1]  Wikipedia contributors, “Emergency medical technician,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emergency_medical_technician&oldid=1304690357 (accessed August 9, 2025).