The Unexpected

I'd like to start this off with an apology regarding the lack of updates lately. I had such wonderful intentions when it came to this blog, but the past few weeks have been very busy. In other words, I've been doing a lot of things worth blogging about, but they've kept me from having much time to blog about them. However, these coming weeks will be more low-key and contain much more time for blogging. That said, here is the first of a group of catch-up entries...

Many of the classes here at the summer school include "experiential excursions," which are essentially field trips. My class this block didn't have one due to some poor planning on the part of my professor, so I tagged along with one of the other classes. Specifically, I went along with the "Photographing the Urban" class to Glasgow. The trip itself was enjoyable. I took hundreds of pictures which will be posted son, and I will discuss Glasgow itself at a later point. For now, I'd like to hone in on just one moment of that trip...

As we were disembarking from one of the city buses that patrol Glasgow, the professor leading the trip pointed out a large, ornate building directly in our line of sight. It was the Royal

Infirmary, she told us. Specifically, the part closest to us was the A&E, Accident and Emergency. It's always sort of fun to find the differences in speech around here, despite the fact that we all speak English. Sylvia, one of our coordinators, added that when Americans say "ER" all she thinks of is the show. Having spent my share of time in the Grove City Medical Center ER, I silently wondered to myself what similarities the A&E and ER share. I never really expected I'd get the chance to find out. Sometimes the unexpected happens.

The week following the excursion went by slowly as I was greatly anticipating the weekend. I was signed up to participate in the adventure of a lifetime -- a three day trip to the Isle of Skye. We were scheduled to leave, via minibus, from the car park (parking lot) outside Donnelly (our dorm) at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning. I was terribly excited for this trip. I'd heard so many amazing things about Skye and the Highlands and couldn't wait to experience it for myself.

Thursday was a busy day spent preparing for the trip. I did two loads of laundry, went grocery shopping for packable foods/snacks, made excessive lists so that I wouldn't forget to bring anything, and before I knew it it was already 2 a.m. I tend to get very excited on the night before trips and that tends to lead to me staying up much later than is advisable. With nothing left to do, I took a shower, got in my PJs and went to the WC (bathroom) to grab my toiletries. The excitement ended here.

As I reached for the slightly torn plastic baggie that was housing my shower supplies, I was being very careful not to get my warm, dry pajamas wet. This should have been the least of my worries. I grasped the bag and some of its contents tightly between my right thumb and middle finger. Something wasn't right, though. And as soon as my nerves told my hand this, it tried to let go, but it was too late. My finger was...stuck? Wait a minute. What's going on?

Looking down at my hand, I realized with horror that my four-blade razor was positioned in the bag with the blades sticking up and into my finger . In one swift motion, I removed the digit from the blades, turned on the faucet with my left hand and brought the wound to rest under a rush of cold water. As I watched the water rush over the small flaps of skin that had formed, I took a moment to think about what had just occurred:

How did I do that? What kind of idiot cuts herself on the hand with her razor? What kind of idiot leaves her razor in the bag with the blades sticking out? Probably the same idiot who would run headfirst into a wall. Really, I shouldn't be too surprised.

All this time, despite the mental commentary, I remained relatively calm. All things considered, the WC is a good place to cut yourself open, and I had even managed to get it to the sink without spilling any blood on the floor or shower. Not bad at all.

What was bad is that it simply would not stop bleeding. I tried everything I could think of. After a few minutes of cleaning out the cuts, I wrapped the finger tightly in a washcloth and clenched the compress against my finger using all of the strength in my left hand. After a minute or two, I opened the cloth to see if it had stopped. Nope. This time, I reapplied the pressure, but also held my hands above my head. Hoping to give it enough time to actually stop this time, I moved from the WC, through the hallway and into my room. I don't remember how I opened the doors, etc, but I have a feeling I looked less-than-classy doing it.

Alright. What do I do now? I can't figure out how deep it is. The fact that it won't stop bleeding doesn't bode well. I could get a second opinion...except that it's almost 3 a.m. Why couldn't I leave my clumsiness for daylight hours? My arms are getting tired...really tired. And my hand is cramping up. Good. Note to self - next time I travel, bring bandages.

I think that this is one of the times during this trip when the sense of how alone I am struck me. At this point I had only been in Scotland for less than two week and didn't feel comfortable waking up my flatmates for what may have been a minor injury. I could call my parents, but at this point they couldn't really do anything except worry, which wouldn't be helpful. I was in a foreign country where I didn't understand how things worked quite yet. My options were limited.

Thankfully, I remembered that there is a 24-hour porter's desk at the next building over, so I decided my best bet was to go there. At the very least, I figured, they'd have a first-aid kit and a second opinion. I'd like to take this moment to remind you that I looked ridiculous. My hair was soaking wet. I was in pajamas and a hoodie. I was holding both hands over my head, clenching them together tightly. And I was very tired.

The porter was a very nice Scottish man named Jim. After buzzing me into the building he calmly asked me what had happened. Of course, it's never fun to explain to other people how you injured yourself, but I've had plenty of practice and very little pride at this point. He suggested we put a plaster on it. In my dazed state, it took me a few minutes to realize that by "plaster" he meant "bandage." The bandage helped relieve my cramped hand, but a few seconds later, blood was seeping through the tan plastic surface and I knew it wouldn't be enough.

At first, Jim suggested I just wrap it more thoroughly and wait until morning to go to the GP (General Practitioner) at the campus med center which opens at 8:30. Of course, that wasn't an option as I'd be leaving for Skye at that time. So instead my only option was to get a taxi ride to the Stirling A&E to have them take a look at it.

Jim called the cab, and as we waited he told me of his latest experience with medical emergencies. Pointing to a large scar on his forearm, Jim told me the story of how a female student bit him in the arm last semester. No joke. Upon hearing this (and clarifying that I'd heard correctly), I took another look at the scar. Definitely in the shape of teeth marks. Apparently she was coming back from a party where someone had drugged her drink, so she was incredibly disoriented and thought she was in danger. The casual manner with which Jim related the story was a bit unnerving, but it certainly distracted me from the throbbing in my finger.

The taxi driver who drove me to the hospital is one of the most authentic Scots I've interacted with so far. That's not to say that everyone else is fake here. I guess I just mean that he's not in the tourism industry and didn't make much of an effort to slow down his speech when talking to me. This made for interesting conversation. There was no way I was going to be able to follow everything he said exactly, so instead I would listen for keywords and intonation and piece it together from there. Here's an example:

What I heard: "Wha' sdhhfiosd soid dkejfioe eijefje class eriooviioje Uni dfidfiodjfioj?"

How I translated it: "I'm asking you a question relating to your classes at the University."

My response: "Right now I'm taking a film class where we talk about how Scotland is portrayed in TV and movies."

This pattern continued for a while and (as far as I know) we had a conversation about perceptions of Scotland and the US in films. He told me about how he used to love to watch country western films when he was younger. In fact, he used to think that America was all just a bunch of deserts and tumbleweed with cowboys, saloons and shoot-outs. I told him about how dude ranches still exist out west where you can go be a cowboy for a week. It struck me as odd that with so much American media being broadcast around the world misconceptions about the country would still exist. But for all I know he was talking about when he was 5 years old. Our conversation was cut short when we arrived at the Stirling A&E.

I had brought every form of ID that I own with me just in case, knowing from my experience with the Grove City ER that there would be seemingly hundreds of papers to fill out with obscure personal information. To my surprise, when I walked up to the desk in the lobby, they simply asked for my name, birthday and address and told me to have a seat. That's it. No cool plastic bracelet with your name on it. No initialing papers that you didn't read. That's universal health care for you. By this time it was almost 4:00 in the morning and the waiting room was deserted.

Well, it was void of human life. What it wasn't void of was about 15-3o plastic cups strewn about the room, most of them empty, but sitting upright as though full. It sort of looked like the previous occupants had been having a party of some sort. Oddly enough there were at least three empty trash bins at various points in the room. I guess I will never know why those cups were there. Maybe they served some sort of secret purpose that an ignorant American simply couldn't understand. Maybe everyone was just lazy. When I was called into the next room by a kind nurse, I looked down at the half-empty coffee cup I had procured from the vending machine. Should I throw it away? Maybe I should leave it in the company of the other cups? But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I dumped it in the trash along with a bit of regret.

In the back room a kind doctor took a closer look at my finger. After explaining what had happened for the fiftieth time (not 4th, not 100th, 50th), I watched as he cleaned it out and then bumbled around in his little supply cart for some "paper stitches." These were basically just very thin, little pieces of medical tape that he meticulously spread across my cut. I should note that by the time the doctor got to look at the cut, it had finally stopped bleeding and looked quite pathetic. It probably could have been a paper cut. He didn't seem to be bothered by it, though, and was quite nice about the whole ordeal. He handed me some more paper stitches so that I could re-do the dressing later if necessary and sent me on my way.

Upon reentry into the lobby I wasn't sure what to do. Shouldn't there be some more paperwork to fill out? Did they need to know I was leaving? I went to the receptionists and asked if I needed to do anything else, fill anything else out, etc. They shared a knowing look and bluntly said "no." At this point, I was past my normal hesitance to ask for help and requested that they call me a cab, which they did.

As I sat outside waiting for the car to arrive, I listened to thousands of birds singing their songs and watched the sun rise over the trees surrounding the car park. It was about 4:30 or so at this point, and very light out. The cab tore into the lot and slammed to a stop in front of the doors. As I got in, I sensed that this driver wasn't quite as friendly as the bloke from earlier that morning. We had little to no conversation, which was just as well. All of my concentration was going into praying that he wouldn't crash the car into a building and send me back to the A&E.

Finally, at 5:00 in the morning, I was back at Donnelly, finger wrapped up, exhausted and ready for bed. I slept for two whole hours and got up for my adventure in the Highlands. Though the night had been quite the ordeal, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I had managed to take care of the whole thing on my own.