An Intimate Connection

Yesterday, walking back to campus from the pharmacy I had a profound meeting. I was crossing 15A a few yards down from the actual intersection. i was just reaching the side of the road where it turned to gravel and then had a slight incline to the sidewalk when we met. It was a moment I will not soon be forgetting. The front of my very inexpensive, GoodWill flipflops bent under my foot. My big toe slammed into the gravel and I crashed onto my left knee and slid on my right elbow. Everyone driving by looked but did not stop or even slow down. I was thoroughly embarassed and my knees were very stiff as i rose from the ground. the first few step i took were slow and jerky. The thought crossed my mind that maybe i should call someone to get me but seeing the blood on my toe and realizing that nothing was broken i chose to keep moving and not think about the pain. So i plodded along all the way back to campus. Half way there i felt something stiff and crusty on my elbow and discovered blood oozing out. i also notices something sticking out of my toe but discovered it was only a big chunk of dead skin. The last thing i noticed was the rip in the knee of my jeans but a that point i thought my knee was unscathed. i climbed the two flights of stairs to my hall and headed to the bathroom to clean up. Seeing the blood and bruising I decided if i was going to injure myself and look stupid i ought to have a picture or two. i headed to my room and pulled out my camera announcing to my roommate that i had injured myself and showed her my elbow. For the next half hour i got to sit still while my roommate slowly pulled the grave out of my cuts. I could not feel anything until she started messing with my toe then i got rather pale, and well, it did not go well. Once i was all bandaged up i took a nap and went to work. When i took my shoes off after returning from work i found that my toe had bled through my sock and stained my sneaker. it was not until i got a shower and removed all the bandages that i saw what my cuts actually looked like without blood all over them. They were black and my elbow had a thick chunk of skin somewhat unattached.

Here are the pictures, sadly they really do not show you much.


this is my toe as it looked when i fist walked into my room:
this is what my toe actually looks like now with the blood cleaned off:
thsi is my elbow as it looked when i first walked into my room yesterday: this is my elbow several hours after the fall after it was cleaned up. You cannot see it very well there is bruising all the way up to my wrist.

this is what my elbow looks like now with the blood all cleaned off:

this is my knee a day later. my other knee is very bruised but it does not show up in pictures