Goodness! That could have been much, much worse!
That whole incident could almost support a novella. I was in the house, trying to stanch the blood flow, trying to decide if I needed an ambulance, since my wife and our German exchange student were out somewhere, when a very strange kid from our neighborhood started pounding on the door and I had a hard time running him off. He wanted to see the blood. When we made the ER, I had to wait hours, after asking for a particular plastic surgeon, who happened to be on call. It turned out the ER doc wanted to sew me up, for practice, I guess. I'll go non-PC and confess that I told her "No, sweetheart, you're not touching my face. I want the plastic surgeon I asked for." She pouted and said he wasn't written down, which was a lie. When he got there in three hours, he said he could have been there in ten minutes. He was highly recommended and had been in med school with my secretary's SIL, an anesthesiologist. I'd never met him. Now, my facial x-rays are a mess, from impacts, multiple nose breaks, etc. I'd explained all this to the x-ray tech, who, by now, was off duty. When the surgeon walked in, he said "Somehow, I thought you'd look worse than this." I explained that I'd told the tech about the history of my face. He turned to Liz and said "Does he look today like he looked yesterday?" She whipped out a photo and he examined it, gave it back to her and said "God, those x-rays look awful"...
