A Sunday in Roscoe, A Monday in the ER

Its been so hectic lately that I decided Sunday was as good a time as any to invite myself to my sister’s place and see my little nephew. It was a very rushed visit that involved doing a lot of driving all in one day, but it was so worth it. Little Logan is cuter than ever and his new thing is grinning hugely to show off his 3 fancy teeth. When we first got there, Logan was all smiles, but after a while he got sleepy and napped for several hours. My sister felt bad that we had come to see him and he was so interested in napping, but I think it worked out pretty well. We had some time to visit with Logan, and then while he was sleeping we had time to catch up with Michelle and Mark. Logan did wake up with just enough time for a brief outing to a park by the river, which was lovely. As always, it was very hard to leave them, but at least Auntie M didn’t cry as much this time as when she left Logan to go back to the jungle last April.

It was back to the daily grind on Monday. Kind of a wretched day, actually. I gave a presentation in journal club about the dog predation event I witnessed that lead to the deaths of Scooby and his mother. I wasn’t thinking that this kind of presentation was that big of a deal, but some of the higher-ups in the department (who, mind you, do not study the behavior of wild primates) cut me down, basically saying that this was shoddy science because it was an anecdote and therefore intrinsically meaningless and a waste of everybody’s time. I never would have thought that a simple journal club presentation like this would land me up in my office crying for a an hour afterwards, but you just can’t predict everything.

So I came home still in somewhat of a grim mood, and even though I just felt like pouting, I forced myself to get off my rear end and go running. It was about 6:40pm when I got back from that; Rob still wasn’t home from his Monday night bike ride. I checked my phone to see if he’d left a message while I was running, but there was nothing. When I got out of the shower, my phone was ringing. It was Rob’s mom, who prefaced the conversation with, “Everything’s going to be okay, but…” She said Rob was in the ER and had been trying to get ahold of me (did I take a really long shower or something??), then she let me go and in a couple seconds Rob called back. His voice sounded like his mouth was stuffed gauze or marshmallows and he said, “A car kind of bumped me, and I fell into a ditch.” Kind of bumped me, what a Rob thing to say. I was still dripping from the shower; I threw on the first pair of pants and shirt I saw and rushed to the hospital.

When I got there, I was expecting to see blood and twisted limbs, so I was much relieved when I saw Rob calmly lying in a bed—not too much blood to be seen—giving a report to a police officer. Rob had been out in the country on his way home from the ride when he got to an intersection where he did not have a stop sign, but the lane perpendicular to him did. As he approached the intersection, a car was also approaching perpendicular to him, and it stopped at the stop sign. Assuming that the car had seen him and was stopping—as it was supposed to—to let him pass through, Rob proceeded through the intersection. Well, apparently the driver hadn’t seen him approaching, because as Rob got into the intersection, the driver started to go. At first Rob slammed on his brakes, but realizing he wouldn’t be able to stop soon enough, he then tried to goose it and serve to avoid getting hit. He managed to get his body out of the line of fire, but the car struck his rear wheel and he lost control of the bike. He skidded, then flipped over the handlebars and landed shoulder-first in what he described as “a very deep ditch” on the side of the road.

The driver called the ambulance for him right away. As Rob was lying there in excruciating pain, he heard a guy’s voice say to him, “Rob are you okay?” and it turned out it was our former neighbor—the guy who lives next door to our old house. At the time Rob was maybe about 2 miles away from our old neighborhood, and this guy had been out for a run in the country. I guess he stayed around until the ambulance got there and he took Rob’s bike and helmet home with him so that we can get it later. Of all the things!

Shortly after I got to the ER, they took Rob away for X-rays, and in the midst of this, Barb and Bruce arrived. When they heard their baby had been in a crash, they drove all the way over here just to be there for him! They are the parents of the year.

Eventually someone who said he was a doctor told us that Rob’s X-rays showed no breaks, which is good news. He may have injured some of the tendons in his rotator cuff (shoulder), so if that doesn’t get better by the end of the week, he should go to his doctor. I was really relieved. At first I was remembering that hospital we’d had to go to in Moyogalpa and thinking how much better care he was receiving here in the US, but then I stepped back a minute and thought maybe not. They didn’t even clean up the “road rash” he’d gotten on his face from the fall off the bike, and they didn’t give him ice or anything for his extensive bruising and possibly torn rotator cuff tendons. But I don’t want to complain, I am mainly just so relieved and so happy that he is okay. It could have been so much worse. When I first heard the news that Rob had been hit by a car, my mind jumped to all sorts of terrifying conclusions, so at the moment I can’t think of anything else but how thankful I am that he is okay.

When he woke up this morning, he said he felt “B-ok” (instead of “A-ok”). He went ahead and went to work, but I suppose this will keep him off the bike for a few days at least. I’ve got loads to do, so I’d better get going. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for reading!