Ok…I just gotta daylog.
My health is…variable. Various allergies and intolerances mean that summer days at school, when every kid is covering themselves with aerosol deodorants, get pretty painful. Last term I averaged 1 day off per week. Not good. And workcover forms are a bugger to fill out. But this term – winter’s coming. It’s cold. The kids aren’t sweating like pigs, and aren’t spraying their little cans of Lynx and Impulse everywhere. Result – 4.5 weeks into term – NO absences. All good. Feeling very proud of myself.
Then we have today. Did not start out well, for various reasons. A test that I’m meant to give tomorrow was only put on my desk last night. Glaring errors, way too long, way too hard. On the warpath, trying to get my moronic cow orker to set a test that the kids have some vague chance of passing. Did not happen. And it’s report time, and today was the deadline for marks to go in…and my marks were happily sitting in my briefcase, on my bench at home. Not good. 45 minute trip to work – can’t just turn around and get it.
So I ran around madly all day, planning lessons, teaching, confiscating cigarettes (oh, ok, so I left the kid with one…he’s had troubles, he needed it…I pretended I didn’t see that one). Rewriting Einstein’s riddle to take out the reference to the type of cigar each person smoked (can’t support that sort of thing. They now drive different sorts of cars. Very creative…).
But it’s all starting to go ok, mark deadline is postponed just for little me…lessons are planned, and I bolt my lunch (Le Snak biscuits) and race out of the front door of the staffroom. The general exodus of teachers heads under the library balcony, up the ampitheatre stairs, out to the classrooms.
The point of my story:
As I mosey swiftly under the balcony of the library, one level up from me, some kid decides to throw his school bag off. One of those industrial strength things full of heavy text books.
THUD!
The bag lands neatly over my head – the strap catching on my forehead, the bag thumping into my back.
SNAP!
The bag’s momentum carries it ever downwards, jerking my head back and causing not insignificant amounts of pain.
THUD! SCRATCHTHUDSPLAT!
Various bits of me manage to hit the ground independently. I really don’t remember which bits hit when.
ow.
So I lay there. Various students raced over and attempted to help me up. We’re not allowed to swear at students, so I gritted my teeth and said “Don’t…touch…me”. Various other kids, drawn by the glamour of disaster, looked down into the ampitheatre.
Thing was – I was wearing my grey jacket. And the jacket that the seniors wear is also grey. Picture this then – a prone, motionless grey clad body, schoolbag and papers nearby, under a balcony.
PANIC STATIONS!!
Two of the Assistant Principals, the first aid lady, three heads of department and God knows who else, were summoned from their various offices with the call of “Ohmigod, call an ambulance, one of the year twelves fell off the balcony!” They were pretty pissed when it turned out there was no actual reason for that heart attack and serious blood pressure problem they’d just suffered.
ow ow ow ow ow
I lay there, quietly trying to move enough to reassure people that I was still alive. Mental checklist – toes wiggle – this is good. Head moves, also good. Don’t want to put any weight on that arm…not so good. Previously dislocated knee feels….GNAARGHH not very good at all, really.
Carefully levered myself upright. Shock was beginning to set in, and I giggled happily when told that my pupils weren’t contracting properly and asked to go to sick bay where there was a mirror so I could check out my eyes. Dammit – I’ve never seen unevenly dilated pupils. I consigned the care of my class to someone else, and wandered up to sick bay. Between us, the first aid lady and I decided on a simple arm sling for my elbow, which was starting to hurt significantly. The application of ice brought on a quiet but fluent stream of obscenities, so we concluded that there was a good chance of a fracture, and took the ice off again.
Took stock of my injuries. (I’m still discovering more…). Most distressing was the fact that my left slut boot will never be the same again – the eyelets are fucked, as are the little loop things, and the previously pretty damn spiffy leather now looks like someone’s taken to it with a grater. *HOWL*. My back feels rather worse than I can ever remember it feeling – and I’ve had my share of chiro in my life. One of my knees (the left one) is threatening to do its dislocation trick if I mistreat it. My left calf feels like hell, as does the bruise on my left foot.
To cut a long story short – no fractures (took 6 bloody x-rays to figure that out…with the dickhead radiologist grabbing my elbow when he wanted me to move. I mean – really. You’re x-raying *that* elbow. Doesn’t that suggest that it might possibly *hurt*? Hmm?), just soft tissue injuries and some serious ouchies. Told to take tomorrow (Thursday) off – staffing officer at school told me not to be an idiot and not to come back till Monday.
Think I’ll go find a physiotherapist.
People keep laughing at me. Keep laughing myself. What a stupid thing to have happen. What the fuck were the chances of that?
Oh, and the kid was sent home in disgrace and should be *seriously* in trouble by now. Hee hee.
And my boyfriend and my friend are drawing straws as to who gets to beat the crap out of him.
And in other daylog news, since I’m here:
We finally dined at the Palisade restaurant. Oh yes – weep with envy, you nonAusnoders – I have been fed by sneff. BlakJak and Nemosyn were up this weekend, and so we three, along with three non-noders who simply wander round E2 at times, went out to the Palisade and dined royally on Black mussels with spiced tomato, coriander and couscous, along with oysters, and amazing whiting, and deliciously tender sirloin, and spatchcocks…and Chocolate fondant, and a yummy meringue which can sort of be found under pavlova. We will be back. Oh yes. I wonder if the Palisade does wedding receptions….