Monday, March 4, 2019

They're called dumbbells for a reason

As I write this, it is early Saturday morning, two days after my birthday. And it is only now that the tidal wave of adrenaline is being flushed from my body.

If you have visions of a wild Las Vegas bacchanalia with booze, strippers, capucin monkeys, yodelers, perfectly seared tomahawk steaks and latex clad Norwegian accordion players, you are obviously new to this blog and don't know my life.

Let me tell you about my life and my birthday.

It began as all great February 28ths begin. With the annual preparation of the Keto King breakfast, eggs, applewood bacon, fresh avocado and fresh strawberries. My wife, who the pope really should consider for beatification, had laid it out beautifully. And it included a special NY Times edition detailing the Michael Cohen testimony.

Damn.

Lunch was also scheduled with my friend and Chiat partner, John Shirley, who should also receive some kind of prize for putting up with my shit for so long.

After breakfast I decided it would be smart to earn the extra calories I'd be consuming on my big 44th birthday. And this is where it all went terribly wrong.

Towards the end of the workout I was dropping a 45lbs. dumbbell from a horizontal bench press. Unfortunately there was already a dumbbell on the mat next to the bench. The larger, heavier weight, in a gravity-induced freefall, sandwiched my hand. And the sharp edges on the dumbbell caught my ring finger, splitting it open the way a skilled butcher would butterfly a rib roast.

FUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKK!!!!

Before I could leave the garage and get to my house, I had lost a pint of blood and had already began considering new nicknames for myself: Rich Siegel, The Nine Fingered Freelance Copywriter.

Naturally, my wife (again, she should be considered for sainthood) said we should go to the Emergency Room. And naturally, I resisted.

Ice. Duct Tape. And that Siegel Stubbornness that has served me well for so many years was the cure for this predicament, I thought.

Fortunately, cooler, and smarter heads prevailed.

We opted for the Cedars Sinai Acute Care clinic, just a few blocks from my house. The lobby was packed with flu-bitten grown-ups and typhoid children who were as loud as they were sick. But because they operate on the triage system and because I was painting the floor red, I got to skip to the head of the line.

Once inside the room, a team of young physicians and technicians pounced on my finger. Soaking. Cleaning.  Examining. The lead doctor said the bone looked good. And the tendon, which was visible to the naked eye also looked good. However, she did say stitches were in order.

This is where it gets painful.

I don't know if you've ever had a Digital Block, that's where Lidocaine is injected directly into the finger to numb it in preparation for suturing, but I'm here to tell you it's not something you'd wish on a shitty landlord or a sleazy car dealer who sold you 1971 Plymouth Duster.

The Digital Block makes Dustin Hoffman's dental probing at the end of Marathon Man look as a harmless as an ad agency status meeting.

I'll spare you the gory details, suffice to say that due to my excessive girth, it required THREE injections with the thick Number 27 gauge needle by the wonderful Lebanese physician's assistant, who may or may not have been exacting some type of sadistic semitic revenge on me.

We were in that little room for the better part of the afternoon. And in between the sewing and the putting of Rich back together again, we chitted and we chatted. And when I wasn't screaming like a baby, I cracked wise with the nurses and technicians.

Not surprisingly, we all laughed quite a bit.

On the way out the door, our physician's assistant said something you don't expect to hear from someone who was elbow deep in damp cotton swabs and my type A+ blood, "I like you guys."

Later, as we were retelling the story to my incredulous daughter, my wife said, "oddly enough, it was all kind of fun."

In an odd way, it was.

Happy birthday to me.

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I will post the aftermath of the day, which you may or may not want to see.

Scroll down.






































1 comment:

Ad Chick said...

Oh my God....I hope at least there was cake later.
Wonderfully told story. Thank you. And Happy Birthday. :)