The time I got 3 head injuries in one week

Hospitals hate me. So do tax payers. When news reporters and conservatives argue over the airwaves about illegal immigrants being a leech to modern society and point to the high numbers of illegals visiting hospitals- they seem to be forgetting the number one cause of hospital debt in this country today: Max Bisantz's Emergency Room Visits.

I'm not sure if being Jewish causes hypochondria, if it is a learned behavior or a genetic defect, but I do know that it definitely makes my family treat the emergency room like most people treat the cold and sinus aisle at CVS. Stuffy nose? Emergency room. Headache? You should probably see a doctor. My favorite emergency room visit, however, definitely goes to my sister after she discovered strange bumps on her tongue:

My sister: Ever get bumps on your tongue?
Me: Yea all the time, what did you eat?
My sister: What do you mean?
Me: Did you eat anything weird, any spicy? That's what causes them.
My sister: Oh
Me: So what did you eat?"
My sister: Mexican food. And pineapple.
Me: Was it spicy?
My sister: Yes
Me: And where are you calling from?
My sister: The hospital.

However these past few weeks I managed to make up for all my phony emergency room visits by logging in a real one. I broke my nose.

Well not my nose. Not the bone. The cartilage. Well, it's not broken, it' "disrupted." I personally wasn't aware that my cartilage was so sensitive to begin with. Disrupted? All I can think of is this weird white bendable mass with shocks of unkempt hair, wearing glasses, and sitting at a desk pouring over books on Proust until finally he slams them shut in protest and proclaims "get that boy to turn down that damn radio! I'm working in here and I mustn't be disrupted!" How is a nose disrupted? Regardless that's what the X-Rays show.

The true story is: I walked into a glass door at work. Yes. However, to my defense this is not as dumb as it sounds. 4 people walked into this glass door in one week, so much so that the hotel I work at had to put up decals on the doors to avoid further injury. It is one man's job exclusively to polish these glass doors. I hate this man. I hate these doors.

The good news about all of this is that in breaking my nose, I bled all over the restaurant, so much blood I cannot believe I didn't pass out - which was really quite funny considering the restaurant is brand new and so expensive you want to claw your eyes out.
The bad news was that Michael C Hall was in the restaurant at the time.
The even worse news is that the doctor's can't fix a disrupted cartilage but just wait and watch while I grew into an even older and Jewier looking person than my genetics already had me out to be.

I should've figured that my hospital Karma would kick in. Oh yes, my other 2 head injuries involved 4 stitches to the scalp on what can only be discribed as my first of surely innumerable unnecessary plastic surgeries I will receive in my life.

Kate's Edit 4/6/11 7:24 AM:


You didn't think you could write a hypochondria entry and I WOULDN'T have a million things to add.  I've been turning headaches into tumors, colds into AIDS and hangnails into flesh-eating bacteria that would eventually kill me for YEARS.  I'm late for work so this will have to be quick.  I can't let this entry go by without sharing the POT-INDUCED HERPES ER VISIT OF '06.

I attended a small liberal arts college's writing program where pot smoking was more common than unprotected sex and thinly-veiled "fictional" short stories about girls losing their virginity combined.  It was a constant stench of marijuana, Upper Crust Pizza from the dumpster (that's a story for later) and general B.O. caused by lack of motivation to shower.

One fateful night, I'd smoked just enough to feel slightly paranoid, though I'm not blaming the following story on my smoking.  I'm paranoid enough as it as, often attributing lengthy colds to the onset on AIDS because that's what Web MD says and despite negative tests and a 4 year long monogamous relationship, I am self-centered enough to assume that my eventual demise will be tragic and unexpected.  "AIDS?  But she's never been unprotected in her life!  It was just a little cold!  How could she have known?"  Anyway, that's an issue I'm working on.

So anyway, I'm in the bathroom, extra paranoid from my indulgences and I decide to look at my tongue: COVERED in bumps along the back, almost in a line...placed so uniformly that you would think they were there for a reason...not a practical reason, no, no.  A DEADLY REASON.  So I call my mom.  Because that's what practical people do.  And as an equally practical person, my mother books it to Boston to take me where?  The Emergency Room.  On the way there, the conversation can only be described as the most awkward and emotionally scarring moment of my life.

Mom:  So...these bumps on your tongue...you ever, uuuuuuh...give....oral....sex?
Me (realizing now that it MUST be herpes and damn mother-daughter awkwardness, I'm getting to the bottom of this!): Um....yes.
Mom:  And the semen.  What do you. um.  do with it?
Me: shock and awe
Mom: Because I know it might seem okay to, you know.  Do that.  But it can be dangerous, let me tell you.  Swallowing can be dangerous.

Cut to the ER, 2 hours later.  A doctor comes in, laughing at the girl who gave a BJ once and says "yes.  those are your taste buds."

You'd think I'd have learned from that situation but about 4 months ago, they were inflamed again due to spicy foods.  Nope.  It had to be something deadly.  Not herpes, of course.  I love my boyfriend and we are as monogamous as the swans in the Public Gardens (swans mate for life anyway, but these particular swans are the only ones in the garden so they're like.  together.  forever.  I think someone once told me that they were actually two girls and thus LESBIAN swans but love is love and Mike and I are just like the lesbian swans in the Public Gardens.)  But I was convinced there was something seriously wrong with my mouth.  ER visit, yadda yadda.  Those pesky taste buds again.  Why would someone make something so useful look so lethal?

Don't judge me.

aaaaaaand we're back.

I feel like Max and I have gotten lazy and haven't updated in a very long time.  too long of a time.  It's almost awkward to just start writing again without at least addressing the fact that we are lazy.  So that's the long and short of it.  Anyway, moving on.  We're toying with new stuff to do, seeing as writing witty posts can be hard when you're about to graduate from theater school and work all day with screaming 7 year old children.  Creative juices tend to stop flowing when you're about to be really poor and you've spent most of your day watching misguided children eat their own boogers.  Yes, apparently kids are still doing that and it is still just as nauseating.

Anyway.  New beginning.  Now here is a picture of a ballerina and a puppy.

Image from here