WARNING: The following blog post is graphic in nature and contains text that may be disturbing to some readers.
Roughly 36 hours after my heart rate soared whilst giving a presentation, I had another big spike. This one came at 12:23 a.m. and was especially jarring as I'd been asleep a moment before. No, I wasn't giving a midnight lecture, but there's a solid explanation nevertheless.
I bet if you opened the bathroom door while half-asleep in the middle of the night, only to discover a scene straight out of Dateline NBC – pools of blood on the floor, your spouse slumped in a corner, face half covered in blood – your heart rate might accelerate, too.
To say I freaked out is an understatement.
It had already been an unusual evening. I got sucked into the DNC, and stayed up super late (for me, anyway). Damn you, Kamala, for giving such a rousing speech full of hope and joy! By the time I crawled beneath the sheets, it was 90 minutes past my bedtime. I figured I might end up with only six hours of sleep that night.
Ha. If only.
Tara always stays up later than me, so when I woke up shortly after midnight to use the bathroom and the lights were still on, this wasn't unusual. Tara was in there, so I went downstairs to the basement bathroom. On my way back to the bedroom, I heard Tara call out weakly, "Babe, I need your help."
Hearing those words sent an ice-cold tendril of fear down my back. I had no idea what I was going to find behind that closed bathroom door, but I had a sinking feeling it wasn't going to be good.
I pushed the door open – it had been slightly ajar – and was greeted by that aforementioned sight. Tara. Blood. OHMYGOD. So much blood.
I would like to say I reacted calmly. I would also like to say I won that $2.04 million Powerball jackpot in 2022, but alas, in both cases I'd be lying. Instead, I proceeded to have a total freak-out because, no exaggeration, it looked like a crime scene. I had no idea what had happened and couldn't tell how badly she was hurt.
"It looks worse than it is," she said. "I just need you to help me get cleaned up so I can go to bed. Oh, and I'm pretty sure I broke my nose."
While cleaning up the blood-soaked floor, I was able to piece together what had transpired. Tara had begun to feel dizzy and nauseous. Her ears were ringing. Next thing she knew, she found herself face-down on the floor in a pool of blood, too weak to move. She knew I'd eventually get up at some point. It was somewhat of a relief to learn the blood covering her face wasn't actually coming out of her face, but still, this wasn't a well, the excitement is over, let's go to bed now! type of situation. I told her we needed to get to the ER stat. Funny how the medical jargon just poured out of me. Five minutes later, we were on our way.
My first hint that maybe Tara wasn't as badly hurt as I'd assumed came when we checked in. The admitting clerk asked what happened, and my dear wife pointed at me and said, "I sassed back at him."
Whoa. Hey now. NOT FUNNY. (But honestly, pretty damn funny.) Fortunately, the clerk realized she was kidding, and no detectives were called in to usher my innocent ass down to the county jail.
Instead, we were escorted to an examination room immediately. Thank god for small-town ERs that are blessedly empty in the wee hours of the morning (and also for a hospital that's only a few minutes' drive from home). Because fainting is never normal, the doctor insisted on a full work-up to rule out anything serious. This meant an EKG, bloodwork, and vitals. It also meant an extended stay, because lab results take time. Tara was hooked up to an IV and we basically twiddled our thumbs for three hours until the doctor finally returned with the scoop.
Amazingly – thankfully – everything was fine. Her nose wasn't even broken; she'd just split the bridge, and they glued it closed. I'll protect what little is left of her privacy here and skip the actual diagnosis (ha, no worries, she insisted I blog about this), but it's nothing even remotely serious. Just a freak thing that could happen to anyone. We were finally discharged and got back home about an hour before I normally get up. I disabled my alarm and tried to get some sleep, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw a bloodied Tara slumped on the bathroom floor. My diagnosis is clearly PTSD.
Tara, on the other hand, is a total trooper. She was the one cracking jokes all night, and while she called off sick on Friday (I'd say she earned that right!), it was just to rest. Other than a decent bruise on her nose, she's completely okay.
"10/10 do not recommend breaking a fall with your nose."
Talk about a rather inauspicious start to the weekend. But by Saturday, it was as if the whole thing had never happened. We spent the day downtown, enjoying drinks and live music at a few different venues as part of our town's annual Rhapsody Festival.
What a way to rebound, huh?
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