My baby got a boo-boo

So last night started of benignly enough, with a nap, a quick dinner, and the kettle set on the stove in preparation for a enjoyable night of watching Kim Kardashian shake her other-worldly ass on Dancing With the Stars. Rick went out to take Kippy for his evening walk, but several moments later I hear him come back in.

"Jon. . ." he groans, which he almost never calls me, "come help me. . ." I'm not sure I've ever heard Rick utter those words, much less in the helpless, scared tone that he did. My spider-sense was going off the charts and I immediately thought Kippy was injured - my mind began flashing through all the horrible fates that could have befallen him. Was he hit by a car? Did another dog attack him on the street? There was hardly time for any of that as Rick has left maybe only a minute before.

I dash in from the kitchen to find Rick lying in the entryway, wincing, a stream of blood pooling on the ground by his feet.

"Oh my god!" I said, "what happened?!"
"I fell down the stairs" he groaned, "I'm hurt"

Again my mind was racing at light speed fearing the worst. Had he broken any bones? How bad was his laceration he obviously had suffered as well? Moments directly after an injury are fascinating, both as a victim and suspect. My brain tries to take in all the evidence at once and shoots into the future showing me every possible outcome. During the very first seconds, all the terrible injuries I've know people to suffer from "falling down the stairs" jump at me - is he paralyzed? Has he broken dozens of bones? Certainly the fact that he's on the floor and calling for help are not good signs. Neither was the rapidly growing pool of blood.

"Oh man," I stammered. "Where are you bleeding from?"
"My foot."
"Did you break anything?"
"No, just my foot. I don't know. It slid into the banister."

I ran and grabbed some toilet paper and took a good look by his toes, and it did not look good, but at least he hadn't broken anything, or hit is head or sustained any other major injuries. Still we had no idea how bad the cut was and the blood kept coming. We got him to the bathtub and he rinsed the cut out and examined the wound which was between his 3rd and 4th toe. He had badly scrapped up the top of his 3rd toe too. Rick briefly pulled the toes apart to gauge the extent of the wound and we both saw a deep, sinewy, nasty laceration. "I have to go to the hospital" Rick promptly declared. So much for Kim Kardashian's ass. . .

Alarmed by the deepness of the cut and still in pseudo-panic mode, I scurried around the apartment gathering things for the hospital, while Kippy licked up Rick's blood of the floor. Nice. Rick discovered he could walk slowly so we decided to just go to the car service place on our corner. On the way down we walked by a trail of blood leading down to the second floor staircase, where Rick had abandoned his flip-flop. Any neighbors coming up would have assumed we had murdered someone and dragged him into our apartment. Turns out that Kipper went behind Rick and wrapped his leach around him and took Rick's legs out from under him. His feet flew out and jammed into a semi-sharp railing that caused the cut. He called for me from the staircase but realized I couldn't hear, so he then crawled up to our apartment.

We got a car quickly and soon arrived at the oasis that is Long Island College Hospital for Rick's first ever visit to an ER. In the end, it wasn't a disaster, and it wasn't a pleasant hospital experience either. We waited about 20 minutes in the waiting room before we got a bed in the ER. After about 20 minutes there, and not even seeing a doctor, we began joking about how the patients would have to start treating each other, like students grading each other's tests. "Everyone to the right. . ." Soon, however, the adenaline wore off, and the vast boredom and misery of the hospital began to swallow us up and the two of shared a cramped gurney. At least the bleeding had subsided and Rick wasn't in too much pain.

After two and a half hours, at about 1:30 AM a wonderful black female doctor came to examine Rick. She quickly proclaimed it was the most awkward cut she had ever seen and asked if she could just cut off one of his other toes so she could sew it up properly. I was an eager spectator and enjoyed watching her stick her huge novacaine needle directly into the wound. As she cleaned it I got a really good view of the wound and was amazed at how deep deep crimson the deepest part of the cut was - it was pure, fleshy sinew. There were other minor dramas going on around us to keep me entertained as well: a jewish girl next to us with a mysteriously swelling leg, an elderly crack head lady who abruptly decided it was time to go home, and a gangbanger type who was lead in in handcuffs.

We finally got home around 3:00 in the morning and went straight to bed, even though the apartment was a disaster and it looked like someone had been murdered in the bathtub. Turns out Kim wasn't kicked off of Dancing with the Stars, so I'll get my chance to watch her next week, as long as Rick doesn't fall down the stairs again.