Head

These days, head trauma is a suspected cause of dementia and Alzheimer’s.  With my memory slipping, I sometimes wonder if a specific injury could be to blame.  Oh sure, I’ve fallen off bikes and been hit by baseball bats, normal kid stuff that I wouldn’t expect to cause brain damage.  But I’ve had some pretty significant injuries….

When I was four, I ran headfirst into a parked car.  That’s right.  A parked car.

How? you may ask.  I wasn’t blind.  I was just too trusting.

My sister and I had gone to Vacation Bible School with our neighbors.  When we finished for the day, the three neighbor boys ran and jumped into their car, my sister close on their heels.  I assumed they would leave the door open for me as they had for each other.  Determined to enter the car with a flying leap, I took aim, put my head down, and started running.

When I came to, I was in an unfamiliar car, in the lap of a lady I did not know, with an ice pack on my head.  I didn’t understand what was happening, but when I looked down at my clothes, which now appeared bright red instead of yellow, I thought I should probably cry.  So I did.  I remember being scared more than anything, but I’m sure I must have had a headache.

Why those boys…or, perhaps, my sister?…closed the door, I’ll never  know.

I do know I ended up at the hospital where I got three stitches in my head.

Ouch.

Of course every child in pain wants her mommy, but mine was not available that day.  She was in the hospital herself, having thyroid surgery.  The tiny stitches I got were nothing compared to the ring of big black ones that encircled her neck.  When I saw her later, I think I cried more over her accident than mine.

But you can be sure I took my time getting into cars after that.

Then there was the time I created a sonic boom.

Yes.  A sonic boom.

I was home from college, reading a book in the living room.  It got late and, not wanting to turn on the lights and awaken my parents on the way to bed, I tried to find my way in the dark.  Now, I had lived in this house for years and thought I could walk through it just as easily with lights off as on.

Wrong.

I slammed my head into the corner of the doorframe, hitting the exact spot where I had been stitched years earlier.  I hit so hard it literally shook the entire house just as a sonic boom does, though I doubt the boom in my head was audible to anyone else.

I suspect the fact that I slept very well that night was related to the obvious dent in my head and I’m quite certain that next time, I turned on a light.

Years later, my head had another yet unpleasant encounter.

We had bought a horse for my daughter.

Okay, truthfully, it was also for me; I had always wanted a horse.

I was standing in the paddock beside Jim when someone started a tractor in a neighboring field.  Jim wheeled around, startled, and the side of his big ol’ head whacked me in the face.  I remember thinking, please, please, please don’t run over me, as I leaned forward, broken face in my hands.  Jim ran past me, thank heavens, so I didn’t get trampled.  When I opened my quickly-swelling eyes, I saw that my hands were full of blood; there was even a small puddle on the ground.

So much for getting home before school let out.

I climbed through the fence and made my way to the home of the friend who owned the farm.  She cleaned me up and iced my face.  Later, at the doctor’s office, x-rays revealed a broken nose and fractured skull.

With my stitches, people expressed sympathy: poor thing…you have a booboo.  With this injury, though, people mostly looked horrified and then looked away.  I suppose they thought my husband had been beating me and they didn’t know what to say.  I tried to cover up with makeup and get back to life as usual, but it didn’t work.  I had to live with that beaten look for weeks.

It’s important to learn from your mistakes, so I made sure that in the future when I stood next to Jim, I kept a firm hand on him so he knew exactly where I was.

Haven’t had a head injury since.

At least not one that I can remember.