This is Your Brain on Pavement: A PSA

Wear your helmet. Always.

See the crack in this one? That could have been Nigel's brain. Thankfully, the helmet is replaceable.

We spent Tuesday night and most of the day Wednesday in the emergency room at Denver General Hospital. Riding his bicycle home from work on Tuesday, Nigel hit a patch of ice while riding on a very busy street, and went down. Hard.

Somehow, he managed to get home, but as he walked in the door, he told me we needed to get to the hospital. His lip was the size of a grapefruit (well, maybe a Clementine but no one says that.) He was disoriented and appeared almost drunk--the slow stagger, the pregnant pause after each question.

We walked into the waiting room at 5:10pm, unsure of what was ahead. At 10:00, after on CT scan, it was decided they would keep him overnight for observation. At 4:30am, he got his second CT scan, and at noon, and MRI.

The good news is that he's fine. He feels like he's been beaten up, but he is up, walking and talking and alive. Had he not been wearing a helmet (he always does; I'm the lazy one) what I would be posting now would be very different and I doubt he'd be home at all.

He's keeping the helmet as a reminder to our nieces and others about the importance of protecting your brain. Please, wear your helmet.

And if you've never spent the night in a city-owned hospital ER, let me tell you what a treat that is! We were among the few sober patients, and they had more ambulances in there in two hours than I can count on both hands. The staff--from all of the security guards (who I got to know well over 22 hours) to the nurses to the doctors, including the three neurosurgeons who walked in at one point....--were great. It's certainly not an experience I want to repeat anytime soon, but at least for us, this one has a happy ending.