[all photos by Lauren C.]

It’s kind of my fault. I usually give myself more than enough of a good angle to clear street car tracks, especially when I’m on the road bike. And I thought I did this time as well. But I guess not. Pump, pump, pump, get ready to turn, signal, splat.

I’m not sure how fast I was going, but the spill was bad enough that, once I managed to collect myself and drag the bike off the road, there were already people there asking me if I was okay. A woman with wetnaps in a ziploc bag gives me her stash and moves on. I sit down and start cleaning my wounds, still reeling and crazy nauseous. Trying not to think about it.

Thanks to a quartet of girls headed for the Polish Festival, I place a couple of phone calls. R tells me not to go home, but to “get the fuck to the emergency room.” L arrives on the scene within ten minutes, and a few minutes later, the paramedics make their entrance. I’m fitted with a temporary sling, and escorted into the ambulance.

The paramedics are hilarious, and make me laugh more than I am already. Did this really happen? Am I actually in an ambulance right now? Weirdness. I’m feeling giddy. Is that a good thing?

As reality starts to fall into place, I start to notice things: the wounds on my hand make me look like Wolverine; I’m sweating; There’s a guy in the emergency room lineup wearing handcuffs, escorted by two cops; The emergency waiting area feels a lot like a greyhound bus station; There are clocks everywhere, to accentuate how slow time goes.

I take that back. Things are moving quickly. Between the time that I arrive at the hospital and the time that I get to see a doctor, it’s less than an hour. I’ve been asked whether I have any allergies to medication about 20 times in 45 minutes. “Not that I know of,” is my stock response.

L is doing an amazing job as photographer, getting up close and shooting the strange surroundings with aplomb. She takes multiple shots of everything, and works quickly.

Fucking road rash. Burns. But I have to say, it’s an almost exquisite sort of pain. Like, it’s amazing that something can sizzle like that… seemingly endlessly. And the way it aches… not enough to drive me crazy, but enough to let me know I’m alive. I kind of like it.

The resident doctor is named Michael. Both L and I will remark later that he’s a damn good looking and well-built man, but for now we’re just happy that he’s easy going, confident, kind, and willing to be photographed.

He performs an array of visual and touch tests to try to diagnose me. He’s not convinced that I’ve dislocated my shoulder, so an x-ray is ordered.

And then I hear the refrain, that no one in the medical sector seems to want me to forget: It could have been a lot worse, buddy. Yr smart enough to wear a helmet.

Ouch. Yeah. I didn’t hit my head. I could have. I was close. But I didn’t. And if I had, I would’ve been wearing a good helmet. Michael is the latest person to remind me of this, after the paramedics, the receptionist, and the first nurse.

“We’ve seen a lot of bike accidents this year with people not wearing helmets.”

“Really? More than other years?”

“Yeah. Even one of the members of the Canadian national cycling team… Well, not anymore.”

“Hmm.”

Sling time. It’s excrutiating to even think of taking off my shirt, so L and I tell Michael to just cut it off. He obliges, laughing at L and I while we photograph the whole thing. To cut it off, he uses this pair of cutters that are ominously chained to the wall. At first I’m not sure if they’re chained there to keep people from stealing them, or to keep people from using them to hurt themselves or someone else. Regardless, a scalpel sits next to them on the table, ready to be stolen and used later, or stabbed into someone right away.

Okay, sling time for real now. Michael tells me he’s never tied a sling before – ever – but he manages to do up a pretty good one. Later on nurse number three (names are difficult at this point) will remark at what a great sling tying job it is. Apparently, Michel is a natural.

When the sling is slung, Michael parts to go prepare a “room” for me. While he’s gone, the sounds of the hospital begin to be come into aural focus. As he shows L and I to my bed, it’s a veritable smorgasbord of comforting, terrifying, and confusing noises. People cry. Nurses and doctors speak in comforting tones. A small child is screaming her guts out. No really, it sounds like she’s being tortured into divulging national security secrets. I find out later that she’s just arrived with a broken arm, and – because of the pain – is inconsolable. Her parents and the doctor try to comfort her, but she’s having none of it. Bloody murder.

L remarks to me that she’s amazed by the sheer amount of stuff everywhere. So many things are literally just strewn about the hospital: piles of linen, medical supplies, old people, rooms… It seems awfully chaotic, though there does seem to be a system to it all. Whatever the system is though, we can’t decipher it.

I arrive at my new digs, and nurse number two – a somewhat crabby man who makes it clear that photography in the hospital is prohibited – hooks me up with an I.V. for later. For now, it’s just a needle inserted into my vein with an open end taped down to my arm. It’s like a USB port of a computer, but for drugs to go into me. Plug and play.

Nurse number three arrives and shows me a good time. She’s in so much better spirits than number two, and after hooking me up to a machine and taking some metrics, she takes me for a ride to the x-ray room. On the way there, my drug port gets put to good use: 5mg of morphine straight to the vein, and I gotta say, holy crap, what a rush. Don’t get me wrong, I would never get into intravenous drug use as a matter of principle, but it is quite the experience. It’s like having a limb fall asleep, and then getting pins and needles, but without the pain. That being said, though, it doesn’t feel entirely pleasant either. Kind of like a rollercoaster, except you actually feel like your heart could beat so fast that you die. Yikes.

X-rays get taken, and Dr. Michael tells me that the results are – as he expected – negative. No fracture, no dislocation, and nothing to be said. I have to come back to see the orthopedic surgeon, who might need an MRI to see if I have torn ligaments or soft tissue damage. And I’m sent on my way.

L and I grab the next cab homeward, and stop at the Shopper’s to get me some painkillers. The total bill for the ambulance ride and the hospital visit is $0*, which makes me thank Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Zoroaster, Krishna, Shiva, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I don’t live in the United States. I know, I know, Canada’s system is plagued with problems and there are gaps all over the place. But still. Wow.

So I sit at the Shopper’s Drug Mart pharmacy, waiting to get my T3s, and the take home message seems pretty clear: It could’ve been a lot worse. I could’ve bashed my head open. A car could’ve run me over after my accident. It could be my right arm that’s fucked up.

But thankfully, by some odd stroke of luck, I’m still here. I’m not a smear of pus on the road. I’m not in a persistent vegetative state. And even though I have no idea when I’m gonna be able to use my arm fully again, it seems okay. It all seems okay.

*Incidental costs: $20 for the cab, $15 for pills, $10 for a new sling