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dland

blackened eye

(2006-02-19 - 13:48)

Angrily I tossed the garbage out the back of the trailer. "This isn't my job, and they don't pay me one red cent to do this crap for them." I complained as pallet after pallet went sailing out the door. Mixed in with the pallets and carboard was plastic wrap now discarded after having done its job of holding whatever freIght was last on the wooden pallets. It was one of these bundles of plastic wrap, or shrink wrap as we call it in the trucking industry, that was still tied to a pallet that I grabbed up angrily to throw out on the ground. What I didn't know was that one end was still attatched to a wooden board and as I threw the plastic out with great force, the board came with it. I turned to see what was holding the plasic when I saw the problem. It was coming at me at a high rate of speed with no chance to dodge it. I fell against the wall of the trailer and held my hand against my face, afraid to move it away. The pain began to subside and I couldn't immediantly tell how much damage had been done. It was night out and very dark inside the empty trailer. I looked at my hand but was unable to see it. My hand felt wet, but I was unable to tell whether that wetness was from sweat, tears or blood. Making things even worse was the fact that my left eye wasn't cooperating with me in as far as vision goes. I moved outside into the light of a street lamp. My hand was indeed covered in blood. "Great!" I thought outloud to no one in particular. Before five minutes had passed, my left eyebrow, lid and whole side of my face was swollen shut, so at that point I knew not whether I had vision in that eye or not. The thought of having put your own eye out is quite unnerving, to say the least. I decided that I needed to know if the eyeball was ruptured, so I placed my face in front of my truck and stared into the headlight while forcing open the swollen eye. I breathed a sigh of relief when pain shot through my brain when finally I prised open a small corner and I was able to see light. It was blurry and undecipherable, yet at least I now knew the eye wasn't ruptured. That was wednesday night. On thursday morning your writer had what appeared to be an extremely swollen eyelid, but with purple eyeshadow applied in some macrabe fashion. It was quite hideous I tell you. But it didn't stop there. By thurday night the bottom lid had succumbed to the purple eyeshadow, and a small pocket or blood blister had started to form in the outside corner of my eye. It wasn't hurting really, so I passed it off as one more hell of a shiner and went about my buisness as normal, sans answering a birage a questions and good natured jokes from co-workers. Friday afternoon the swelling began to diminish enough to see from that eye again, which was welcomed news as your depth perception is all but destroyed using this "mono-vision" style of sight. I'm quite sure one could become accustomed to that, but for those of us where the fact is temporary, it seems quite unhandy. Saturday found me at home staring at a mirror and discovering that the white of my eye was turning red with blood. Its not the sort of thing one enjoys viewing first thing in the morning. The Urgent Care Clinic in my home town was closed due to bad weather. Ice and snow is a fact of life for most truckers, yet here in Mississippi the locals close the whole town and go home upon news of even the chance of snow. Its a good thing they don't visit Minnesota in the winter, eh? Today is sunday and right now it is a quarter 'till one in the afternoon. I'm sitting in the Urgent Care Clinic's waiting room. My eye is bloodier today with what appears to be a "bleeder" vein within my eye. I also have contracted that respitory virus that's going around and my DOT physical expires next month, so I am going to get my moneys worth with todays visit, I hope. So here I sit with my Blackberry, having already answered my email, and now told all of you what happened to me this week. I'm trying to use better time management. Do you think I am suceeding? I will update when I have more "eyewitness" news for you. Untill then, take care of you! Love, Tim

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