An epic tale of the Boiler of Doom.

In my earlier posts I hinted about the A&E visit that occurred in the second week of living in my new flat. I said one day I would tell this story. I've decided today is the day. So sit comfortably, grab a snack and marvel in my ridiculousness as I tell you the completely true story of the Boiler of Doom.



"I have just one question for you, do you watch Misfits?"

I sat opposite The-Awesome-Alice (nicknamed for reasons you will soon understand), my eyes hopeful as inwardly I prayed for the answer that would make me so happy.

"Yes." She said.

The inward celebration was immense. Hazzah! The penultimate episode of my favourite drama was on tonight and I could watch it whilst also being a good and sociable friend as well.

"Thank goodness!" I said. "So do I."

The-Awesome-Alice breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad, I thought I was going to have to miss it."

I poured us both a glass of wine to celebrate our mutual love of the same TV shows and we relaxed into the unending girl talk that we had always been so awesome at.

We had two hours to kill until the awesome show began and two years of our lives to catch up on, so we had plenty of material to cover!

I was that little bit extra excited this night because I had been in my new little flat for just over a whole week now and The-Awesome-Alice was my first real life guest.

The chat was awesome and the episode... I simply have no words, if you haven't already then you simply must find time in your lives to watch it and see for yourselves.

Once it was over we got onto the topic of TV shows we loved and, due to us both being women in our 20's, we shared our love for Vampire Diaries (I won't apologise for it, I love that show).

It turned out that The-Awesome-Alice hadn't seen an episode I had, so being a geeky friend, I immediately grabbed my lap top, opened iTunes and thrust the screen in front of her face.

While she watched the beautiful people swoon over each other, I disappeared to have a shower (I don't have the stamina to get out of bed in time for one in the morning and I had work the next day).

There is a boiler in my bathroom. It's the one in the picture above. It's an evil boiler. I knew it from the moment I set eyes on it. When I was first shown around the house, I had pointed at it's protruding metal frame and thought 'One day, I'm going to hit that.'

I just hadn't thought that day would come so soon.

My having a shower had been normal enough. Shampoo was mixed in and rinsed out, conditioner was spread through my hair and left to settle whilst I grabbed the shower gel.

It was at the point everything went so completely wrong. I would like to apologise now for the vague and fuzzy memories that are about to follow. I really was not in the frame of mind to be holding a lot of memories. The following injury mingled in with our glasses of wine and the night becomes a little confusing.

I had bent down to grab the shower gel and on my way up, my head met this...



My sight blurred and my brain confused, I stumbled back but slipped on some stray conditioner and somehow fell forward so that the exact spot on my head that had met the boiler, also met this.



Yes that's a wall and no I didn't decorate it, it was like that when I moved in

I don't really know what happened next but I remember waking up lying on my bathroom floor. I couldn't have been out for long as I could still hear The-Awesome-Alice watching Vampire Diaries. I scrambled to my feet, put on a dressing gown and tried to look at my reflection in the mirror. Unfortunately everything I was looking at seemed to be shifting in and out of focus and the mirror was so steamed up I wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway.

Convinced I was fine, although still vaguely aware that my head felt like it was on fire, I stumbled into the living room to find The-Awesome-Alice glued to my lap top. She looked up as I entered and stared at me, puzzled.

"Lisa, have you been trying to dye your hair red?"

This alone should have sounded warning bells but I was too dazed to fully understand the question. Instead I answered:

"No, but I think I've hit my head."

I'm not kidding, the look of pure horror that then filled The-Awesome-Alice's eyes will haunt me for the rest of my life.

"Um Lisa, I think we need to call an ambulance."

Confused, I turned to the full length mirror and watched my expression match The-Awesome-Alice's.

No word of a lie, I looked as if I had just landed the lead in a horror movie and I was out to hunt down my next prey. My face was coated from forehead to chin in thick blood.

From this point on, the world becomes very fuzzy. I have a vague recollection of tissues cleaning my face, getting changed, more tissues, being sat down on my sofa and looking at the most amazing looking paramedic I have ever seen. Then there was throwing up in a bowl the paramedic was holding. Being aware of a bandage being put on my head. Throwing up again. Passing out and hearing the paramedic shout my name at me several times. Wondering to myself how this beautiful man knew my name. Opening my eyes. Being struck again by how stunning he was. Hearing The-Awesome-Alice's flirting techniques and knowing that she too had noticed the extreme loveliness of this man. Throwing up again. Then I was in an ambulance. Then hospital A&E. Then I fell asleep.

I woke up sprawled all over The-Awesome-Alice. I found out we had been there for about 4 hours. The-Awesome-Alice hadn't slept at all.

Words can't express how grateful I was for The-Awesome-Alice being there at that time. She was truly amazing and had gone above and beyond lovely (The-Awesome-Alice, if you are reading this, you are simply awesome, love you muchly).

I made a mental note to do something amazing for her in the future. Although I feared there wasn't anything that really matched short of hitting her over the head sometime in the future and taking her to A&E. Alas, I realised, my action of being the hitter would probably cancel out any niceness involved in sitting on a metal chair with her for a couple of hours.

I decided that that kind of thinking was probably best saved for a time when I wasn't suffering from a head injury. Instead I thanked her verbally and then went to the toilet to throw up again.

A nurse eventually glued my head back together and The-Awesome-Alice and I finally left the hospital at 5 in the morning.

Needless to say, I didn't go to work that day. Instead I got to go home to a bathroom that literally looked like someone had been viciously murdered in. I wish I had taken a picture guys, there was blood ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE! I cleaned this the best I could then collapsed into bed just as my alarm went off telling me to get up.

Wanna see what the boiler did to my head??



As you can imagine, I fell out royally with the boiler after that. It was intense for quite a while. I'm beginning to forgive it but there is a lot of residual anger there still bubbling under the surface. It's going to take me a while to be okay with it again.

As for The-Awesome-Alice? Well I've yet to save her from any future head injury's but, you know, it's only been 6 months. I'll just have to ensure that if she goes anywhere hazardous I can be there with tissues in case she starts to bleed.

Thaaanks The-Awesome-Alice. Peace out everyone else, and congrats if you got this far!!