The Hole In My Head: Explained

The only thing that I might find creepier than Neil Diamond or V8 juice would be toddler beauty pageants. That being said, let’s discuss the hole in my head.  Since mention of the injury in my last post seemed to cause a great deal of stress for most of you, I thought I’d take a brief moment to explain this before your blood pressure rises to unprecedented levels.

It was the Spring of 1997.  The air was hot and so was her white fiberglass Saturn sport coupe.  It was a stick shift (which was a really bad idea since she could barely drive the lawn mower).  This very car would eventually lead to her almost-death.

One rainy night, Blunt was driving around aimlessly.  The next thing she remembers is laying on a stretcher and staring up into the night sky, thinking “Is this a dream?  Why can’t I feel my body?  Crap. I’m about to die.  Or maybe I did drugs? No. I’m dying. Here we go.” [[[[back to unconsciousness]]]]    The next thing she remembers is being in an ambulance with 6, possibly 7, very hot paramedics.

Hot Paramedics: Do you have any pets?

Blunt:  Um, I have 4 cats: Pebbles, Bam Bam, Mittens, and Muffin.  … I named them when I was five okay?

Hot Paramedics:  You were in an accident.

Blunt:  You’re kidding. Was it my fault?!?  My dad is going to KILL ME. [[[[back to unconsciousness]]]]]

saturn-sport-coupeThe next day she would awake to find herself in the ICU wearing a neck brace, with various tubes coming out of her and over a hundred stitches in her head.  Apparently, she had been struck by a drunk driver in a large Astrovan, directly on the driver’s side.  But would you expect anything less from someone in an Astrovan? The impact was so hard that it somehow managed to cause a piece of her skull (about the size of a half dollar) to break off and press on her brain.   “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” she thought, “three weeks before prom?” The doctors weren’t sure if she would be normal and said if it was a millimeter closer she would be paralyzed for life.    ***Status on the car: lets just say that pieces of it were scattered in various directions.  Bye bye sweet Saturn sport coupe.

Doctor:  We might have to do brain surgery.

Me:  WHAT? Why?

Doctor:  Well to relieve pressure on your brain.   And to extract the bone and glue it back to your head.

Me: Will I have to shave my head?

Doctor:  Only the left side.

Me:  Well, that’s out of the question.  What if I don’t have the surgery?

Doctor:  Well, you could have several side effects and if you ever get hit in that spot again you’ll die.   That means, no accidents, no “rough housing,”  NO SPORTS.

Me:  Doctor, no offense, but do you know me at all?   That certainly won’t be a problem.

For a month I could not move, shower, or wash my bloody, crusty hair.  Tons of visitors came, only to be kicked out by the nurses.  It was a great time.  So, I left my head as it was.  I have had none of the anticipated side effects of the injury, except some VERY BAD headaches and some memory loss.  Oh, and the occasional panic attack, which probably has less to do with the hole in my skull and more to do with the crippling insanity of my daily life.

After much prodding, I was released the DAY OF PROM. Phew.   My first stop: the tanning salon.  Please, I had a white dress okay.  Then, I passed out from overheating and not having any food in my system.

Then there were a plethora of “airhead” jokes at school, and every other possible reference to how I was missing part of my head.  Don’t feel bad, I came up with most of them.

43 thoughts on “The Hole In My Head: Explained

    • hey laura!!! you know, i wouldn’t be surprised if you had one. i have a tendency to be talking to people and outwardly make fun of something that i find out later on they own and love very much. my bad. i don’t care though, astrovans deserve it.

      thanks for stopping by!

      p.s. i tried leaving a comment on your blog. but it only allows for open ID. I host my own site so i can’t leave one unless it has the name/URL option added. sorry!

  1. WOAH! What a delightful and disturbing story. Seriously though that picture of that little girl is CREEPING ME OUT. It’s like she can see into my soul, and she wants to EAT it.

  2. This story is totally shocking and appalling, and I am in complete disbelief.

    On the bright side, you can now reference the hole at will without a dozen “I need to know about the hole!” responses.

  3. 1. Does your head whistle when you walk in the wind??

    2. Don’t you still have your daily elephant name that you can use as open id?

    3. You may want to check out my recent post before it moves out into obscurity. Someone you know is highlighted.

    • bearman, even though my old blog is redirected, i can’t access it at all except from my wordpress admin panel. i can’t view anything, its as if it was never there. so blogger won’t let me post open ID’s with the wordpress blog anymore. its very frustrating when people only allow for that on their blogs, as many people don’t have blogger and its easy just to change the settings.

  4. Wow – that is insane. Glad you are ok – I would be a little paranoid with said hole in my head but you look like you might have thick hair so your ok 🙂

    Funny blog for later – as a child – I was in a beauty pageant, peach frilly dress and all. Once I get the picture scanned in its coming. Watch out.

    • oh NO JULES! that is funny, yet creepy. sigh.

      yes, my thick hair is all over the place. it takes over my life and there are remnants of it everywhere i go. But you can definately feel a huge dent in it and it would be visible if i shaved my head, for sure.

  5. WOW! That was quite entertaining and thoroughly disturbing! Well, obviously I am glad you lived through the experience…but MY GOODNESS!

    So, after passing out at the tanning salon did you make it to prom? 😉

  6. I knew a guy from college whose head practically exploded from multiple (count ’em multiple) aneurysms. Things were getting so bad, in fact, that the doctors did not replace a piece of his skull, anticipating future surgeries (kinda like leaving the door unlocked when you’re simply walking out to the mailbox).

    At least you weren’t fitted for one of those extraterrestrial looking halo braces.

    • thanks for the encouraging words mvd. you’re right, things could have been worse. although i did have to wear a pretty sweet headbrace as a kid because of my underbite. so i didn’t totally escape that whole extraterrestrial thing

  7. Well, ok, I narrowly escaped headgear throughout adolescence, despite a grueling set of years in the orthodontist’s chair.

    That said, I’ll go head-to-head with you on school photos any day: my enormous overbite (made even disturbingly larger due to big chompers) vs. your underbite.

  8. so where is this piece of your skull that broke off? I still can’t believe you didn’t let them do the surgery! your so shallow!! not to mention your clumsy as can be!! watch out! def should have let them put the piece back. but i love you anyway!

    • one and only – its on my left side — haven’t you felt it before?!

      actually they said the risk of brain surgery was just as great as leaving it, so it was a 50/50 chance.

      and YEA RIGHT, like you’d of shaved your head. puh-lease.

    • oh, did i mention neil diamond?

      don’t worry, i already wrote a blog about why everyones should hate him, entitled 7 reasons to despise neil diamond.

      um, seriously, could you have a CREEPIER gravatar ???

  9. Dude, that sounded totally selfish.
    I’m glad you’re alive and kickin’ it so you can enjoy the beauty and glory of the wonderful world around you.

    Eh. That sounded phony.

    I’m glad you’re alive and kickin it so you can enjoy good coffee and laugh at stupid politicians and eat good food and take long naps.

    Hows that?

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  15. I don’t have any holes in my head (although that might explain some things and I don’t think many people would be surprised) but once I had a hole in my eye. Yes I know everyone has holes in their eyes. I should clarify. I had a hole in my retina. Well, not exactly. More like my retina was coming off of my eyeball, leaving a hole. No, a drunken Astrovan driver did not cause this. I actually don’t know what did. My eye surgeon thought perhaps it was an old injury that took years to manifest (and no, a drunk Astrovan didn’t hit me when I was younger – but I did get kicked in the head by a horse… well. More like bitchslapped in the head by a horse… for another time). They had to cut open my eye to fix it, but I didn’t have to shave my head. And I didn’t need 100 stitches.

    I tell you this story because I too was in an ambulance with hot EMTs. Well. I heard tell they were hot EMTs. I couldn’t really see. I wasn’t dropping in and out of consciousness, but I was barely there and did have vomit in my hair (that would be my bad – underestimating having your eyeball cut open + not enough fluids or food + history of fainting = mild seizure/pass out end up in ambulance with hot EMTs. Rumored hot EMTs).

    Anyway.

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