Can't slow her roll

This morning, it looked like a crime scene, my daughter's blood soaking into the concrete. In the lobby, where brown construction paper covered the floor, bloody footprints traced the path to the elevator, and stopped there, because we'd already mopped up the blood on the upper floor where my daughter and her boyfriend live. It happened like this: My girl had gone downstairs last night to meet a man delivering Thai food for our dinner. My niece and I were at my daughter's house, helping her paint names on gift bags, a DIY project for her cousin's bachelorette party. My girl is the maid of honor, and she and ten young women are meeting in Mexico at the end of the week for a celebratory fling before the upcoming wedding, to be held in Jamaica in December.

Last night, the food delivery man got lost. He went to the building next door, so my daughter said she'd just meet him downstairs in the lobby. She pushed open the door to the vestibule of the other building, noticing too late that it was broken, with jagged pieces of metal sticking out. The metal sliced my daughter's foot in several places. Most of the wounds were superficial, but two slashes were deep and bloody—two long parallel rips in the flesh below her right ankle that looked as if they were made by bear claws. My girl gets nauseous at the sight of blood, and there was a lot of it. By the time the delivery man got back to the lobby from an upper floor in the wrong building, my girl was huddled against the wall, whimpering. "That's my food, I'm just a little queasy," she squeaked in a small voice. The man stood there looking at her, confused and frightened.

I knew nothing of this yet. All I knew is that her boyfriend, who had been upstairs in the apartment with us, answered his phone, then grabbed his keys and rushed out. My daughter had called him and managed to get out, "I need help." He found her sitting on the ground of the vestibule in the next building, a pool of blood making her reef sandals slippery. He helped her up and outside, where she heaved and was sick into the bushes, the men on the basketball court across the way pausing their game and looking on, concerned.

It was about 8:30 PM. I was just about to go looking for them when I heard the elevator door open on their floor, and they came into the apartment, my daughter limping and trailing blood, looking rueful. Her boyfriend helped her into the bathtub and got water running over the slashes while my niece and I cleaned up the blood in the apartment and the public spaces. Then I sat with my girl, still in the tub, while her boyfriend ran out to get First Aid supplies, as they had none in the house, these invulnerable young people. He bought everything he could find in the wound care category at the dollar store, as the pharmacy was already closed, and the supermarket had nothing. He is a bit squeamish about blood, too, but he was definitely the MVP, clearly a good man in a pinch.

Meanwhile, we called my husband, who drove over with a First Aid kit and gauze pads from our house, and my son, the paramedic, who was at work, but advised his sister to go to Urgent Care and get a tetanus shot. It was 11:30 PM when we got to the late night Urgent Care place on the Upper West Side, and past midnight when our girl finally saw a doctor, who cleaned the wound professionally, sealed it with glue, dressed it, and wrapped the whole foot. My man dropped our girl and her guy back home in the wee hours.

My daughter has a big event at work today. It's "her" event, in that she is the one running it. We left her trying to figure out what shoes would accommodate her injury. She's at her event now, while I've just finished making calls to find a good waterproof cast cover that she can wear in the pool or the ocean in Mexico, as the doctor advised her not to get the wound wet. I'd worry less if she didn't have to travel so soon, but she leaves before daybreak tomorrow. She means to be the best maid of honor ever. Her cousin, the bride, is a doctor, and another one of the bridesmaids is a medical student. Come to think of it, two other members of the group are also doctors. I'm trying to let that calm my mother worries as I silently count the hours till she gets back home, safe and healing.

Oh, and this morning, the front door of that building has already been fixed. I'm sure they saw the blood and are now waiting for a phone call reporting the injury.