I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much blood. It came streaming down my face, turning my shirt into some kind of horrible white and scarlet tie-dye mess. There was just so much blood. But, just as fast as it appeared, it was gone; the wound was superficial, I just didn’t know it yet. So we loaded into the car and headed to the unfamiliar hospital. “Is it bad?” I asked over and over again.

“No! You’re fine,” I was repeatedly reassured. I found it hard to believe my parents. There was just so much blood.

The waiting room at the Sonoma E.R was small and dingy, as, I would soon realize, was the E.R. itself. On this 4th of July day it was packed with an assortment of characters and injuries. There was a man who was without a thumb after a chainsaw incident, a small child with severe flu and several teenagers with fireworks burns. I found it hard to pay attention to these injuries and acknowledge their severity. Why was I being forced to wait so long? The cut on my head was still there. There was still pain, though it was beginning to dull. Were these people more important than me? Why weren’t there more doctors? All these questions swirled around my already full head. Finally my thoughts were interrupted by a nurse.

“William, we can look at you now,” she said as she hurried between rooms.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I mumbled weakly. She motioned for me to follow her, and with my dad bringing up the rear I finally was in the treatment room. It was tiny, only seven or eight beds if I remember correctly. I ended up on the farthest bed from the door, passing many of the injured and sick from earlier in the waiting room. The man with the thumb injury was whispering to his wife while I passed, bandages over his entire hand. The sick child had stopped crying, and her parents looked a little less concerned. The final bed I passed had drapes covering all four sides, and I wondered what gruesome 4th of July fireworks burn was being shrouded.

“Wait here, the doctor will see you shortly,” said the nurse as she hustled away.

“Great,” I mumbled barely audibly. I sat down on the bed and once again began a long wait. My dad and I talked about how many stitches I might need to close this cut on my head. I guessed a lot, he didn’t think it would be so many. Suddenly, from behind the drapes on my right, I heard an agonizing groan that seemed to silence the entire E.R. As talking began to resume, the nurse ran in to check on the man in the draped bed. She gave him some pills to take, and as she left I managed to catch a glimpse of the man. He had no visible injuries, but his groaning continued as the doctor came in to check on me. He seemed like a nice guy, if overworked, tired and a little impatient. He glimpsed over to the man on my right as he instructed me to lie down on the bed so he could clean the wound.

“Alright, one bandage and you should be good to go,” he said calmly.

“Wait, what?” I stammered. This was impossible. He hadn’t seen that damn pitchfork lying around my grandparents’ backyard go into my head. He hadn’t seen all that blood. I couldn’t really say anything else. My dad talked to the doctor a little more and he left. I was shocked. As I sat up on the bed the groaning on my right worsened. I was listening as another doctor slipped in behind the drapes to address the poor guy.

“I’m sorry man, it’s your liver. You’ve got about six months,” said the doctor, who then departed. Those were his exact words. I’ll never forget them or the way he said them. It seemed like cruel bedside manner to add to a devastating revelation, which it was. My dad was able to pick up a little more about the man, finding out that he had come directly from a nearby alcohol treatment facility where he had taken ill. I don’t think I spoke for the rest of the day, and it wasn’t because of my injury, one that I felt was so important earlier. I was thinking about that man, and how I had witnessed him receive a death sentence. We found out later that our bill for the one bandage was about 1,000 dollars. I know it wasn’t my money, but wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.