…..and how was your Memorial Day weekend?
Maybe you spent it poolside with a cold drink. Perhaps you enjoyed a cookout with your friends. I got stabbed! The assault was so brutal that the stab wound was actually the least of the damage done to me.
Eight days ago life threw me a major– and painful– curveball. I want to briefly address what happened. Rest assured there will be much more to come later. While bringing much-needed food to an unsheltered friend, I noticed a young woman standing in the blazing sun holding a cardboard sign asking for money. She was visibly pregnant. I took a quick detour to run into Kroger to buy her a Vitamin Water. Though she wasn’t one of the ‘regulars’ out there, I’d been seeing her infrequently for over a year. I have given her food and drink before. Though I didn’t know her name, we spoke briefly at Burger King last year. She was somebody I recognized, but not an acquaintance, and certainly not a friend.
To make a long story very short, after I gave her the drink, I returned to my friend. She lit up a cigarette and I chatted with her while she smoked. At this point, a man comes up. Again, this is somebody I had seen around, but I had spoken to him several times. He asked my friend for a lighter, we exchanged pleasantries and complained about the weather, and he told me that pregnant girl was his wife and that she was ‘slow.’ I told him he need to get his pregnant wife out of the sun and off the streets and he said he was working on it and then he went on his merry way.
She came barreling over and screamed at me for “talking to her man.” I laughed incredulously and told her to calm down. Without any warning, she came closer and kicked me in the head [at this point I was sitting on some concrete steps with my friend while she finished her cigarette]. Knowing I could not in good conscience physically strike a pregnant woman, I started screaming at her– and yes– I called her more than a couple unpleasant names. She then came over and kicked me in the head at least three more times and once or twice in the torso. Then she pulled a knife.
Two days post-stabbing. Not my best look, but whatevs.
I am still quite traumatized by the incident so I will discuss it in more detail at a later date. After she stabbed me, it didn’t take long to start losing a lot of blood and crumple to the sidewalk. There was only one stab wound, thankfully, but it was a three-inch blade and it penetrated to the the bone on my right upper arm, near my shoulder.
The major life-threatening issue came from her kicking me in the torso. Not surprisingly, I suffered a concussion from repeated kicks to the head. I’m dealing with very unpleasant side effects [ear trouble, migraines, vision issues, etc.] and I hope they eventually subside. However, when I was kicked in the torso my right lung collapsed and filled with blood, thus giving me an injury they call a hemothorax— and with it came a tube inserted into my lung during emergency surgery designed to suction blood out of my lung into a box that went everywhere I did. My God, I can’t even describe the agony. And I won’t, not now.
I plan to share more of the process with you as my strength increases. This is just a summary of my actual injuries. Suffice it to say the assault has derailed my status quo. The repercussions from this trauma are far more than my damaged body– financial, emotional, etc.– and I’m losing money daily with my inability to work. Surviving was the ‘easy’ part [which is saying something because I barely escaped with my life]. Processing, healing, and rebuilding what was lost is where the real meat and potatoes of this horrific ordeal comes into play. My body and mind suffered unimaginable trauma and I’ve got a long journey ahead of me.
WREG News Channel 3 wrote a brief article about my assault that has been circulating on social media. There’s a little more to it than what they described, it’s the most accurate news blurb I have found thus far.
With infinite love, gratitude, and respect,
Sloane
Cocktails With Hemingway 