My parents have been divorced since I was 2 and I had been living with my father for 2 years because my mother didn't have the means to take care of herself, much less me (meth addictions will do that...). He didn't seem thrilled to have me around, but he accepted the responsibility. I was 15 years old and was on summer break from my freshman year in highschool. I supposedly went to spend the summer with my mom but instead, and with her approval, went to stay with some friends who were all seniors and had even older friends and we would go out drinking and partying most every night.
One night at a party in downtown Louisville I discovered beer bonging. I think the stuff tastes like piss but someone pushed me to try it so I went for it. After a few beers I decided to put tastier things like rum and whiskey in the bong. I don't personally remember anything else from the night except for the actual drinking itself but from a visitor in the hospital (one of my friends that was there) I was told this:
Some guys thew on boxing gloves and went at it in the front yard. Most everyone went out to watch and it went on for awhile until a neighbor called the cops. Cops show up with paramedics (seems weird, but maybe it was because they were boxing) and I take off running, being clearly underage and not wanting to get into trouble. The area that we were in, Old Louisville, has a lot of elevated lawns, like 2-3 feet up from the sidewalk and street. I apparently ran near the edge of one and stumbled or fell down off the lawn and crushed the side of my head in on a curb. By crushed I mean my the right side of my skull was in pieces and there was a ton of pressure on my brain aswell as fluid. The paramedics pulled me out of my pool of blood and threw me in an ambulance.
Surgeries were performed and I woke up in the hospital that same night and turned over and started vomiting into a pale that a nurse was holding. I remember her asking for another pale as I filled hers with liquid. Two pales of vomit..
I spent a week or so in the hospital with a catheter in for most of it. Every four hours a nurse would come in, shine a light in my eye, and give me Tylenol and every three hours a nurse would come in, grab my penis, and rotate my catheter so it didn't stick to the inner lining when they pulled it out. Tylenol was the only medication I could have because anything that would effectively relieve the pain would also mask the symptoms of a head injury. Anyone who came to visit me would come in the room, take one look, and then walk out of the room crying. Supposedly I wouldn't see out of my right eye ever again, or if I did, it wouldn't be the same.
I had 37 staples across the right side (and only shaved side) of my head and have titanium mesh holding pieces of my skull in place. When a doctor took the staples out, he used a tool that reminded me of that thing that dentists poke your teeth with; it looks like a miniature scythe, kind of. He would stick it under the staple, into my skin and dried blood, then jerk out the staple were hard to get out because of all the caked blood and healing. For a few years I could feel the piece of my skull move around a little bit when I moved my jaw. Move your jaw and you can feel your temples move -- it was around and a little above that area that I smashed.
After a week in the hospital, memory drills everyday, my eye's swelling going down and me miraculously regaining sight, the catheter coming out, hours of banjo kazooie, and many hours on a bike that has fans for wheels, I left the hospital. Oh yeah, and my father was there some of the time, a few hours a day at least. It was kind of hard to gauge his reaction, but he seemed disquieted, not especially thankful that I was alive, but like maybe he was angry.
About a week after I was out of the hospital my dad said to me "Son, get your shit and get the fuck out of here." I guess that he was angry about the bill. I think it was only like 9k because I had good insurance and he could afford it, but still, 9k is 9k. I just always think of it as a freakish accident that happened while I was out being a kid, but I dunno how he feels, I haven't really talked about it with him since. I was very far from a bad kid, I just went out having a good time one summer and that happened. Anyway, I have very little family so I called my best friend and his dad told me to come live there and I did.
