Adventures in Floor Care

Stripping floors, in a commercial setting, can be dangerous. The very act of applying stripper to a waxed floor means you have to take great care walking around. A stripper-covered floor is incredibly slick. More than once I’ve found myself smacking the floor as my feet have done a Wile E. Coyote dance in the air. No traction at all! But that’s the price of doing the job: you take your time, move with care, and pray you won’t take a wrong step. ;)

Last night that wrong step had not a danged thing to do with a slippery floor! Oy!

So Saturday we - myself, and two co-workers - had an Animal Hospital to strip. It’s been nearly three years since it was last stripped, which is way too long between strippings. I knew we were in for a tough job, but we would be careful, and we’d strip it twice, if need be. And that’s what I ended up doing on most of the floor.

Having stripped the surgery for a second time, the floor was no longer a greased Teflon surface, but I decided to wash down the coving - baseboards - with water to rinse off the stripper and push it away from the walls. This makes vacuuming the sludge much easier, as well as the later rinse.

So there I was, with my plastic pitcher of water, crouched over, doing a rinse of the coving, and moving well. And where was I looking? At the baseboards, of course. I completely forgot the X-Ray film viewer bolted to the wall. You know, the one with the very sharp corners? Well, trust me, that’s the one!

Next thing I knew something struck my head a tremendous blow! I thought it was one of those annoying over-head light fixtures that will not stay up! I slapped my hand to my head - dang! It hurt! - and looked over to see what I had actually hit. Yep! The Viewer cabinet bolted firmly to the wall. Pulling my hand down, I figured I might have some blood - it was a whale of a shot! - and sure enough there was blood. A lot of it!

I could feel the warm trickle running down the side of my face, and slapped my hand back on it, then ambled out of the surgery to a nearby sink.

“A little cold water might stop this,” I figured.

My co-workers were out there, and probably heard my loud imprecations at the offending cabinet and my own utter stupidity, because they were both staring at me. I splashed water on my head a few times, then clamped some paper towels onto the spot.

“Dayum!” I heard one of the guys say. “You better get to the hospital, man.”

I pulled off the paper towels and saw they were soaked red.

“Oh shit, man, you better go,” said the other one. He grabbed some gauze pads and handed them to me. I realized I could still feel a warm trickle down my face, even with a new set of paper towels, so I asked him to put the gauze over the damaged place. Yep! I was holding the towels just under the actual cut! LOL

We went out, hopped in his truck, and motored down to the local Emergency Room. It took maybe 30 minutes to get checked in (I sent my co-worker back to the Animal Hospital about midway through the wait.), called to an exam room, get all the vital stats done, then find my way into one of the treatment rooms. Another 10 for the Doctor to come in and begin torturing me. ;)

Actually every step of the way the folks at the Countryside Mease Hospital were friendly and helpful. My brains weren’t leaking, so it wasn’t like a life-threatening situation. :)

The Doc talked me through every thing he did, warning me when he was about to stick a needle in, to numb the area, and so on. We joked most of the time. He seemed unimpressed at my complaints over no longer having such an awesomely pretty visage.

I barely felt the needle, only sort of felt the stitches going in - I have a nice 90-degree cut, with a little bit of *me* missing - and when he left he had explained everything. The Nurse came in about 5 minutes later, to give me a tetanus shot. I didn’t feel that at all! I don’t know what they teach Doctors and Nurses these days, but giving a hypodermic seems to be perfected at Countryside Mease! :D

Signed my release, and went outside to call my co-worker to come back and get me. So I spent the rest of the night with my head bandaged like an Apache. This morning that wrap had pretty much come off. So I had my first look at the damage.

*meh!* Not so bad. But it’s very tender, and after a shower I’ve slathered it with an anti-biotic.

And that was yesterday’s Adventure in Floor Care. :) And how was your day?

PS: I said copious thanks to the Lord for knocking some sense into me, and for the help I received, too. The Lord is always very good to me, despite the fact I'm a grubby sinner. :D