If I Only Had A Brain...

Yay, I do! And I have medical proof.

Thursday was a day like any other: Get to school around 6:45am and organize my day. Teach my first class, an introduction to business class. Teach my second class, digital communication tools, formerly known as keyboarding, formerly known as typing It's time for my prep period; I work on future lesson plans, break for lunch, and then finish my prep. Time to head to my third class. I'm a little early.

I like being early to class. I don't have a classroom to call my own as I change rooms every class period. I used to wheel around a suitcase-like briefcase that I called my office on wheels. This year I graduated to a cart. The briefcase just wasn't going to cut it anymore. I wheel my cart to the back of the room and decide to log in to the teacher's computer real quick before the bell rings. That way I can check my email and have the attendance program up and ready to go. I go to sit down at the table when.....whoosh.....the chair slides away. Cue the laugh track. The fall was nothing, except that there was a built-in bookshelf right behind me. After I hit the ground, I fell backwards and smacked the back of my head, just above where your skull and neck meet, against one of the shelves. I screamed something no one should scream in a school-setting. No one was near, so no one heard. There I was, sprawled on the floor. The room was spinning, and the pain was intense. Not exactly the scene I want my students to walk in and see.

What do you think my first thought was? This is proof I've been watching too many crime dramas. My thought was, "wow, if this were CSI, I'd be dead." It was just like the tv shots they show when someone falls, hits their head, and dies. I gingerly touch my head. No blood. Phew! Then the bell rang. I knew I had seconds before my class arrived, so I quickly stood up.

The room was still spinning, and I didn't have my balance when my first student arrived. I grabbed the chair to sit down. AH HA! That was the problem. Someone had switched out the chairs, and it wasn't the one that was usually there. The shape was wrong; the height was wrong; in fact, it was one of the chairs I disliked because they were too slippery and moved too easily. I called my student over and sent her down to get ice for me. The rest of the class filtered in. With the usual alertness displayed by teenagers, my students went to their computer stations and got ready for class. E. returned with the ice and a message from the school nurse that she needed me to come downstairs and fill out some paperwork as soon as I could get away.

Once the class was underway, I slipped out to my office next door. I knew I had some prescription strength Motrin in my purse left over from my tendonitis flare-up in July. I had never taken the pill bottle out of my purse. I took a Motrin and went back to class.

When I finally made it down to the nurse, I had to fill out an accident report. I felt like such an idiot. My chair rolled away, and I fell down and went boom. I went back to my last class of the day. Not five minutes later, the nurse came running in flushed and breathless. Our school's administrative office had told her that they wanted me to go to the emergency room because I had a head trauma. I convinced her that it could wait one hour until my class ended, and then my husband would take me.

So, that's how I spent my Thursday afternoon. I had a cat scan, and the doctor confirmed that I do have a brain. No serious injury, just a big bump that is very tender, and a headache that is now on day three. Gotta love that Motrin.

Now if this had been a Lifetime movie that cat scan would have revealed a huge tumor or a nail that had been imbedded since I was three years old and that we had never known about. My life is dull, and that's how I like it!