"Ooh-Child, Things Are Going To Get Better" - 16 August 2014
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"Ooh-Child, Things Are Going To Get Better" - 16 August 2014
Moonrise Over Little Painted Desert - Winslow, Arizona
Link to full sized image: http://www.tom-hill.biz/Galleries/Scenics/Arizona/i-hw86FkV/A
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The song popped into my head.
"ooh child, things are going to get beettter, ooh child, things will get briiiighter."
The catchy song from the the early 80's was making me hum its lyrics as I sat there, sat there on the bed at the emergency room.
"Ooh Child..." I'm singing this to myself when I start smiling at the irony of me in an emergency room with my finger wrapped in an enormous bandage, IV sticking out of the other arm, heart rate monitor and blood pressure cuff leading to blinking machines. "... Things are going to get beettter."
A few days ago I cut the tip of the fourth finger of my right hand while working on my bicycle. Not my motorcycle. I wasn't even in the gears of the darn bike., not the sharp gnarly parts. It was the brakes of my push bike, the blunt part. I was spinning the front wheel when I caught my finger in the spokes and slam--badly cut finger.
Off to the emergency room. While driving there I tried to recall the last time I was in an emergency room for me verses taking a friend. I think it was all the way back in high school when I lacerated my right eyelid. No, that time I got stitches from head butting my friend while falling off a banana boat way back when stationed at Kadena AB does not count. No ER then. This time I definitely needed ER kind of help.
There was much waiting around at the ER. Fortunately for me I was at least sitting on the gurney with connections attached. After the x-rays, there was much consultation among the medical experts--i.e. finger bone people--about the extent of my finger's issue. Turned out I only needed stitches.
As I'm prone to do I try to make lemonade out of the lemons. I tried entertaining myself by mentally raising my pulse by staring at the pulse machine. Then, I tried to lower it all using my mind. No, I wasn't very good at doing either. I figured out my schedule over the next couple of weeks. I would've recited the natural log tables like I did during my Prisoner of a War training almost 30 years ago. Unfortunately, being 30+ years removed from using those tables in college I couldn't remember a single value. Then I started to get bored as I sat there. That's when the song popped into my head.
I just saw the movie "Guardians of the Galaxy" a few hours earlier. If you haven't seen it I recommend it if you like entertaining mixes of 70's 80's awesome songs intertwined with comedy, aliens, and a talking raccoon. Towards the end of the movie the song Ooh Child makes its appearance. The timing was at a particularly tense moment for the heroes of the movie. It makes perfect sense if you see the movie. Heroes in trouble. cue the song. "Ooh child, things are going to get easier."
I sat there on the gurney not thinking of anything, I considered my situation and thought, "this kind of sucks." Just before falling into the trap of "this kind of sucks more" the song popped into my head which made me smile. I don't know where these gifts come from. They just happen. I'm lucky sometimes that way.
I softly sang the song while the heart rate monitor beeped in the background. As crazy as it was to be there in the emergency room wired up with my finger in an enormous bandage, I smiled. That lead to me thinking as bad as it was then, it certainly was going to get better later.
Cheers
Tom
PS - Now a couple days later, things are definitely better.