Ouch.

The injury!  Needed stitches on the left side of the pic. My right side.

Thank you so much for all the get well messages on twitter and facebook! A lot of you have been inquiring about how I got hurt. But it’s too hard to explain in 140 characters.

I was doing dips on this piece of equipment, called the “matador” Monday morning (see below).  But I attached the matador to the rig upside down so when I applied weight to it, the whole thing flipped back.  The piece that normally attaches to the rig hit me in the chest, dragged up my neck and slammed me in the bottom of my chin.

The "Matador" The part that attaches to the rig was upside
down so it flipped up.

 When the matador flipped, this was the piece of mental that
left the two gashes on my neck/chest

I didn’t know what happened.  My whole face was tingling and my teeth felt numb.  Did I lose a tooth? Two?  All of them? I felt little pieces in my mouth.  My fiancé Aram ran over.  He assured me I had all my teeth.  But I chipped the front two and I’m still having nerve issues with one of my bottom incisors.

My chest was stinging but I thought it was just a scratch.  When Aram told me we had to go to the hospital I thought he was overreacting! I reached down to touch my chest but he stopped me.  “It’s a little worse than you think”.

I was shocked when I looked into the mirror.  I thought, I’m getting married in a few months.  And I look like I got into a fight with Edward Scissor Hands.

We drove to a minute clinic.  They wanted to give me stitches but I scar really easily.  Against the doctor’s recommendation I had them use liquid stitches (A.K.A superglue) for the gash on my right side.  They were concerned the glue wouldn’t hold so they used steri strips to help keep the skin from pulling when I turned my neck.  Well….a day later and I can’t turn my neck anyway!  Every muscle in my neck has seized up from the trauma of the whole thing. 

My boss was super nice. It’s ratings period so I normally can’t take off for any reason.  But she immediately told me to take the day off and rest up.  What are the chances that Joe Furey gets sick the same day? Poor Dan Amarante was stuck working a 30 hour shift.  Thanks Dan!

I have an appointment Monday to fix my chipped teeth.

Too bad I can’t blame anyone but myself…I put the darn piece of equipment on upside down.  Aram says he was shocked I lasted that long without getting hurt. Believe it or not, I was doing one set every twenty minutes and I got injured on the very last set.  Minute 20.  Go figure.

I also recently hurt my ankle (technically my posterior tibial tendon).  Luckily I didn’t aggravate the injury on the way down. Probably because my chin broke the fall.  Um…yay?

All in all, I got lucky.  Imagine if I had the two gashes on my face????  Or what if the metal hit a major vein in my neck? I'll take my chest wound and count my blessings.