Mom always said, "No swinging golf clubs in the house!"

So not two minutes after I posted my blog last night (around 7:30) I heard what sounded like a window pane falling out of the window and shattering on the floor. At first I thought the sound came from the neighbors across the hall. I thought I’d better check things out just in case something happened with the cats. Brad was in his room and I yelled at him, “You okay in there?”

He responded, “No, not really.”

“What happened?”

He opened the door to his room. The first things I saw were the blood droplets on the floor. Then I noticed the blood running down from his left lower calf to his foot and the shattered light fixture scattered everywhere in his room. He said, “Uh, I think we need to go to the emergency room.”

My response was, “Uh, yeah, I think so.”

You see, Brad had purchased a new driver for his golf clubs this weekend and took it to the driving range with Karl to test it out on Saturday. He was so happy and excited with his new driver he was testing it out in his room and perfecting his swing in the mirror. However he didn’t factor in enough room for his back swing and the driver hit the glass light fixture above his bed sending it crashing down.

I grabbed my purse and keys but realized Brad was still bleeding profusely, so I grabbed an old washcloth. “Here,” I told him. “Put this on the cut to stop the bleeding.” He bent over to apply pressure, but apparently it’s not very practical to walk while bent over touching your ankles. I found some masking tape and hastily tore off a large strip and handed it to Brad to tape the washcloth around his leg. After a few applications we had it tight enough and were finally ready to go. Brad grabbed his flip-flops from the living room and we were off.

I think by the time we got to the car we were laughing hysterically about the entire situation. The adrenaline got to pumping and we just couldn’t stop laughing about the absurdity of it all. I realized as I was driving that I was going to miss the season finale of my favorite show, “Alias,” so I called Karl and asked if he could tape it for me, laughing the whole time I’m talking.

Karl said, “You’re drunk!”

“No, really I’m not. I’m taking Brad to the emergency room.”

Karl couldn’t tape the show because his reception sucks, but he said he would call around to see if someone could tape it for me. He later called and told me Dave would tape it (thanks a million to you both).

We got to the hospital and Brad signed in. They put a temporary bandage on the wound and he came back out to the waiting room. His adrenaline was starting to wear off and the pain was starting to settle in. He told me to go home so I could watch my show but I told him that I wasn’t going to just leave him there. The nurse called him back after only about ten minutes. I thought about changing the channel on the TV in the waiting room so I could watch my show but didn’t want to piss anyone off. I decided instead to make my weekly phone call to my parents.

After I was done talking with my parents I went back into the waiting room and began reading a magazine with last year’s American Idol final three (Ruben, Clay and Kimberley) on the cover. My cell phone rang and the number popped up as “Brad Cell.” Brad was bored and just thought he’d check in. I asked how he was doing and he said he was still waiting but hopefully it wouldn’t be too much longer.

He came out of the ER a bit after 9 p.m. with a clean bandage wrapped around his upper ankle. I asked him how it went. The two and one-half inch cut was pretty deep and pretty jagged and required 16 stitches to sew it up. The doctor told him that since the cut was so deep he would need some pain medication so the doc gave him a prescription for Vicodin. In addition, the nurse gave him some contraband free bandages that Brad had to stick in the front of his pants to sneak out of the ER.

Two stops later to get gas for my car and Brad’s prescription filled, we got home a little before 10 p.m. After checking to make sure the cats hadn’t gotten glass in their paws (in our haste we neglected to close the door to Brad’s room) Brad began cleaning up the mess and wouldn’t let me help. So I put a pizza in the oven as neither of us had eaten. Brad decided that all of his bedding would need to be thrown away as there was shattered glass all over the bed. He really started to feel the pain as we sat down to eat and decided that once he was on the drugs he wouldn’t want to work on Monday. So he arranged for a sub to take his morning class, but he was still determined he was going to teach his afternoon class. We’ll see if he makes it.

Brad will be okay – he’ll probably have a scar, it will hurt and it will take a while to heal. He's more mad than anything that he’s not going to be able to enjoy his four-day weekend as he had originally planned. But accidents will happen – I was just glad I was there to help. What a crazy weekend this has been!