Keep Calm and Panic Later

 

Occasional accusations of being cool-headed in a crisis have been directed at me over the years. I guess it is the one small advantage that comes with not really feeling my life experiences in the moment, but rather in dribs and drabs sometime after the fact.

This aspect of my mental make-up came in handy the time I started blacking out while barreling down the Autobahn at about 90 mph. With only two tiny pinholes of sight left, I instinctively pinched myself in the leg so hard and painfully that it brought me back and I could make it to the next exit. I parked the car and immediately my whole body started shaking.

Cool-headedness also helped in an English class once when a young student of mine tripped and hit his head on the edge of a low table. The kids started yelling and I ran over to him. He was lying face down. A pool of blood was spreading out from under his head.

“Tommy! Can you hear me??” There was a low, mumbled groan in reply.

The other kids were all standing around staring at us. I started barking orders. “Lea! Go get Sandra! (my fellow teacher). She zipped out of the room just as I had an afterthought. “Amy! Follow Lea! Tell Sandra to bring her cell phone.” (I was pretty sure we would have to call for an ambulance.) Amy ran off and I turned back to Tommy.

“Does your neck hurt? Or anything besides your head?” He groaned out a “no”.

“Do you think you could roll over on your back? Carefully! I’ll help you.”

As he rolled over, I saw a fairly deep gash in his forehead with blood spilling out of it. A lot of blood. I looked around for something, anything I could use to press against it. I looked at my own clothes and was about to take off my sweater to use, when I spotted a crumpled up napkin on one of the desks. “Niles! Give me that napkin!” He handed it to me and I said “Now go down to the kitchen and get some clean towels – make one of them wet!” He and another boy ran off.

“Tommy? Can you talk to me? It’s important,” I said as used the napkin to put pressure on his wound. “Tell me where you live.” He answered. “Do you know where you are?”  He did. “What is your mother’s name?” For some reason that made him smile a little and he answered again. Sandra rushed in and then went out again to make the phone call. The towels arrived and while replacing the napkin, I could see that the bleeding was slowing. I thought it would be good to get his head elevated.

“Tommy, do you think you can sit up? Do it slowly. I’ll help.”

We got him into a seated position and then I just kept talking to him. I got him to slowly turn his head to the left and right. Eventually he could stand up and we started our slow walk to the kitchen. The bleeding had stopped, so we cleaned him up a bit, sprayed some disinfectant of his gash and held a moist cloth on it. We talked till the ambulance arrived. They took over and asked basically all the same questions and then carted him off to the hospital for stitches.

As soon as they had left, I sat down and, once again, got those full body trembles.

 

So what made me remember these events?

Because yesterday, while blogging, I heard a loud scream coming from the basement, then a crash, and then the sound of my daughter tearing up the stairs.

“THERE’S A SNAKE DOWN THERE!!” she shrieked.

“Really?” I asked in a mildly interested tone. “Let’s go see.”

She cowered behind me on our way back down the stairs. I was already 99% sure we wouldn’t find a snake, but a harmless blindworm – which is actually a type of lizard and really common around here. An “anguis fragilis,” as Wikipedia tells me. And sure enough, that’s what I found.

I took the nearest object and used it to poke the worm. It slid an inch, keeping its form. It was not only dead, but dried stiff.

“It’s dead,” I said as I picked it up and waved it in the air. My daughter wasn’t convinced. “Look!” I said as I hit the floor with it a few times. It made a little knocking sound. I confess I found it sort of neat. “Here – do you want to look at it?” I asked. I held it out toward her and she backed away and signaled her disgust. Alas, my enthusiasm was not contagious.

Her anguish over the anguis fragilis was not fragile. She has since declared herself officially ophidiophobic.

And she’s not buying the “it’s a lizard, not a snake” line either.