Last week, as I was heading into the glorious tiny town of New York City, I glanced in my rear view and noticed that damn, my nose was looking super skinny. I was curious if it was just the mirror or if it truly did indeed look as good as I thought — So, I took a quick selfie and sent it to my Mom.
Based on her response I realized I was having quite the day. A skinny nose day! These don’t come around all the time for me.
I have a plump nose. I was born with it. I got it from my Dad. My Seeester has it, too. And when her first child was born, I jumped for joy and sang “She has our nose!!!” when I realized our genes were extra-strength and carried on to her tiny little face.
Brad Pitt insists that he loves it. I think he is lying.
To make matters worse, my plump nose is also a bit crooked.
Supposedly people can’t tell its crooked. I think they’re all lying, too.
I was so stoked about my skinny schnoz, that I shared the screen shot of my text message on Facebook and said this in my caption:
“I’m having a skinny nose day!!
It’s still crooked from when that crazy beeotch punched me multiple times, but it’s still so awesome.”
Apparently, this excited my friends because everyone wanted to hear the story about me getting beat up by a crazy beeotch. So … without further ado …. and leaving a few parts out because of HIPAA, PTSD and suppressed memories ….
••••••••
I was at the ripe age of early 20-something. I had graduated from college, but had not started graduate school yet and was working in a behavioral health facility. (IE: a lock-down facility for children and teens who required treatment for behavioral and psychological “issues.” Could be as minor as combative behavior and delinquency, or as major as full blown psychoses.) I had chosen my particular job at the time to get experience that would help with my graduate studies. Let’s just say I learned a great deal at that job.
I don’t quite know where to begin, really, so I will just summarize until I get to the part you all want to hear the most — you know, the part where I was punched in the face over and over.
The Summary:
The unit I worked on was for teenage girls.
It was not uncommon for the patients to act out and physically assault someone.
It was not uncommon for them to verbally assault someone, either.
(My favorite personal assault was when one girl said to me “Fuck you, you fucking fake ass Barbie Doll bitch!” — I took that one as a huge compliment. It was before my nose was broken, of course.)
The girl who beat the shit out of me had just turned 15.
She had also just chosen me as her “favorite staff person” the week prior.
She was having a bad day.
I was having a great day. Until she beat the shit out of me, of course.
The Beat Down:
When she first punched me, I didn’t realize it was my face getting punched.
I knew she was throwing punches. My eyes saw her fist swing through the air.
But it took a good hundred-bazillion-minutes (not really, but in hind sight it felt like it. it was actually probably five seconds or less.) before I realized “holy fuck, she is punching me!”
When I finally realized my face was the target, I dropped to my knees in self-protect-mode. At this point, I think she was still punching me with one fist (I’m not sure, my memory is fuzzy on that part) but I know, for damn sure, she had her other fist tightly gripping every strand of hair on top of my head. I know this because when the other staff members who witnessed the beat-down came in to rescue me, I felt myself going bald as they tried to pull me away from her. Someone thankfully noticed her tight grip and somehow managed to pry her Incredible Hulk fingers out of my hair. My co-workers dragged me out of the area — not before she got a couple kicks in, which really didn’t matter because my face and hair were top of mind at that point — and as I was pulled away, I was instinctively holding my nose.
I remember saying “I need to go to the bathroom, I think my nose is bleeding” and the nurse on duty and I walked together to the nearest bathroom. When I pulled my hand away from my face and looked in the mirror my jaw dropped. My nose looked like it had been pushed from one side of my face to the other. I turned to the nurse and said “I think she broke my fucking nose.” And she said “Uhhhhh yeah. That is definitely broken. I heard it crack when she punched you.”
That made me feel better.
Honestly, I was actually pretty calm at this point. And I stayed remarkably calm as I was led toward another unit so that I could file the necessary injury reports and call my parents. Because, um, hello, my fucking nose was broken and I probably needed to see a doctor.
When I called my parents’ house, my Mom answered and I told her I needed to go to the emergency room. I think I said something about my nose being fucking broken, but I can’t remember. I think she was like “don’t say fuck while you are at work” but at that point I didn’t really care about an unprofessional vocabulary as I was standing next to my supervisor. My fucking nose was fucking broken.
They (the nurse and my supervisor) kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. But I was good! I was calm, cool, collected. And then all of a sudden a wave of something came over me and I was like “yeah, I’ll take that wheelchair now.” Then my Dad showed up. And he took me to the emergency room.
Fast forward to when we eventually got to see a doctor and the doctor ever so kindly explained that yes, indeed it was broken (no shit) but sorry there was nothing they could do to correct it until the swelling went down.
It was at this point that I lost my cool. I was like “What!? You can’t do anything!? But its MY FACE. Fix my face!!”
And then I had a flashback to the time my friend Chris got hit with a softball and it broke his nose and he told me that when his emergency room doctor said there was nothing they could do, he went ape shit crazy and was like “No you need to fix my face right now, this is my face and I need my face back! Get me a plastic surgeon or something, you have to fix my face!!” And I thought “Holy shit Chris, that is so superficial. I can’t believe you acted like that.”
But when it happened to me I had the same exact reaction. I was definitely like “Oh, helllll no, you are not sending me home without fixing this problem.”
But they did. They sent me home. And I had to wait about a week for the swelling to go down before I could have corrective surgery. I was told the impact pushed one side of my nose inward and the other side outward (concave & convex fractures – medical friends, feel free to correct my terminology as needed).
I don’t know why my ENT didn’t make my nose skinny while he was working his magic pushing my nose back into place. But I suppose I should be happy that its mostly back in place. And honestly I think he got it fully back in place with the surgery, but I like to sleep on my side and I think over the years the pillow has pushed my nose back out of shape. Sigh.
Anyway, so there you have it. The story of how I got bitch slapped and ended up with a big, crooked nose.
PigTales 