Injuries

So my brother Harper has the gout. Ha HA Sucka. Harper getting hurt made me think about all the time that I have hurt myself.

There are many funny stories about how I have hurt my self and I am planning on sharing a few.

Here is the Elbow Story
It was the day of the all star clown show, I had just spent the last week perfecting my clown makeup and getting a new costume. I had also been working with Bob on a boxing gag. Bob was probably six foot something and more then three hundred pounds. A big man compared to my five nine one twenty five self. The gag went flawlessly with the champ (Bob) being beaten by the wimpy challenger (me). Then the show was over.
After the show while other clowns where signing autographs I was running about juggling. Thata€™s when it happened. I was running in my size seventeen clown shoes while juggling three clubs when I tripped. As I tried to catch myself my left elbow bent backwards and became dislocated. Dona€™t ever do that it is not fun. So there I was on my back, with my elbow bent all funny with a bunch of screaming kids saying do that again that was funny. I finally recognized one of the teachera€™s kids and sent them for help. When Dale Bothum got to me he asked if my elbow normally did things like this or if he needed to call and ambulance. I asked for the ambulance.
Lucky for me the ambulance drivers in Minnesota have a sense of humor. The ambulance pulls up near me and out jump the paramedics. They bring over the backboard and start to place me on it. The funniest one asks me how I am feeling checks my capillary reflex all that paramedic stuff and then asks me if I was clowning around when I got hurt. HA HA. They loaded me onto the ambulance and took me off to the hospital.
As we were riding to the hospital they wanted to put an oxygen mask on me so that I could breathe easier not go into shock or whatever. The problem was that my clown nose was still on and they couldna€™t get it off. They where pulling all nice and finally I just reached up and yanked it off. Once the oxygen mask was applied I just laid there on my back waiting to arrive at the hospital and wishing that there was a poster or something to read n the ceiling on the ambulance. I asked why there wasna€™t twice.
Upon arriving at the hospital they transferred me to a proper hospital gurney and tried to remove the oxygen mask. I say try because it had bonded to what was left of the nose glue on my nose. So once again I had to rip it off. At that point they gave me a conscious sedative to calm me down and take away y the pain. Shortly after that in my drugged up time frame they took me to the x-ray room to be x-rayed. The lady in the x-ray room found the fact that a clown was in here x-ray room to be hilarious and after taking my x-ray posed for a picture with me.
Once the doctor saw my x ray he explained to me that I was lucky in that I hand a€˜t broken any bones in my elbow but I had dislocated it the hard way, straight back. She then said that she was going to need to give me morphine but I was not mentally able to sign the consent form because of the previous drug they gave me and I needed to pick someone to be a guardian for me. I pick someone at random first and the doctor suggested that I should pick someone I knew. So I chose Joe Barney aka Doc Geezer, one of the teachers at camp. He signed the consent and it was off into crazy land. The morphine hit me like a ton of bricks making all the pain go away and making me crazy.
While they where waiting for the drug to take affect I was left to my on devices. Those devices just happened to be show tunes. I dona€™t know why but I started singing the phantom of the opera with different voices for every character. They politely told me that I needed to be quiet because I was waking up other patients in the E.R. After about five minutes of show tunes they came in and re located my elbow. Talk about a POP! It was disgusting.
After that they took me to a room where a nice nurse helped me remove my clown makeup and get into a bed where I slept until morning. The next day I flew home and started physical therapy and my first semester at college. About two weeks after coming home I started to do gymnastics again and was soon back up to my old tricks.