scary answering machine messages...

on Tuesday July 24th I went to Austin for a baby shower for Angela and as I pulled on the driveway I could tell that Michael wasn't home...which is a little irritating, since he should've been home from his softball game already. When I opened the door, I discovered his worn clothes strewn about the entrance and confirmed that he was not home (my irritation level has gone up a few notches by this time). So, I put down my purse and go to the answering machine...which is dutifully blinking red to let me know that there's a message. I push play and hear this message, "This is Jacelyn, Michael's coach's wife. Michael got hit in the face with a ball" (at this point my stomach does something funny and I suck in my breath)...the voice continues, "but don't worry, it's ok, he's conscious. We're taking him to the dentist to get him stitched up, call me on my cell." Needless to say, all feelings of irritation have disappeared and been replaced by great concern. I called and found out that they were in the process of stitching him up and he should be home soon, I didn't need to bother coming down. So I waited and waited, it took almost two hours. When Michael got home he explained that it was because the dentist was such a clown (as in funny) that all the laughing amongst everyone made the stitching take a little longer than normal. The dentist even cleaned up the nasty scrape on his leg from sliding for a base while they waited for the freezing to kick in.

For all my nurse friends, I'll now go into more details of the wound, if you don't want to read this paragraph, skip it. Apparently Michael was going for a low grounder (hit by a very big & beefy man) that must have caught some kind of edge and bounced unexpectedly high, catching Michael in the mouth. His tooth punched right through him bottom lip, Michael told me he had to pull his lip off the tooth. He also had a half inch deep gash in his upper lip. We don't know exactly how many stitches there were, a few in the top lip, a few in the bottom and one on the outside. The craziest part is that Michael didn't have time to eat supper that day, so he was really hungry and now he couldn't eat! He could actually barely drink either, but he managed to get down a smoothie.

The dentist told Michael to talk as little as possible for the next 24 hours. Well, that's not exactly easy considering what he does for a living (he talks on the phone all day as a dispatcher). The trouble was that his boss was out of town, so Michael had to go to work or there would be no one there. So, I went with him! I got to be Michael for a day! It was pretty interesting explaining to people what happened and repeating everything they said to me on the phone, so Michael could tell me what to say out of one side of his face, and then I would say it into the phone. I have to say it was nice to see what he really does though.

The pictures show the progression of his injury from the night it happened, the day I went to work with him when it got really swollen and the day after that when it started to come down again. He looked totally normal by Sunday, and has been kissing me again since two weeks after the injury. :)