As far as the rest of my life goes, things are not so easy.How is it that when my aunt says to stay healthy and no injury's before the wedding, I end up almost in the ER!
Either her words were bad luck, I have a secret subconscious sadistic side, or I live with little evil invisible gnomes who make sure something always happens to me right before some important event.
I personally think it's a mix of all three...lol
So here's the story.
I was having a quite but happy Wednesday and decided to spread the love by making my corn bread for my mother as a nice surprise for when she got home. Everything was moving smoothly... that was until I reached for a ceramic bowl from the dish rack, it slipped out of my hand, and broke.
Now my first instinct when things fall are to catch them, so I was already reaching for the bowl when it broke against the sink edge, and instead of catching the damn thing, I ended up stabbing myself deep in the wrist with a nice big jagged piece of hand painted ceramic.
What you need to understand is that this is my left wrist. The same one that got sliced open when I was 9, nicking my artery, and severing the tendons of my 4th and 5th fingers. Even years later my hand isn't the same and I still have an aversion to the sound of broken glass. So you can imagine what ran through my head when I saw, once again, the white meat of the inside of my wrist and blood pooling inches away from my old scar.
Luckily either by nature, all my years of practice at being a klutz, or both, I've learned how to react calmly yet quickly in a crises.
I immediately removed excess debris from my hand and wrapped my wrist in paper towels while applying pressure to stop the bleeding.
I wasn't sure what to do next, my mind was racing.
I kept waiting for the pain to hit me but it didn't. I felt an odd tingle/burning but no real pain.
Maybe because of the adrenalin I felt surging through my veins, maybe because I hit nerve damaged tissue, either way I wasn't gonna look a gift horse in the mouth...
I knew there was no way I was calling an ambulance when I lived within walking distance from the hospital, especially since I wasn't bleeding too bad, so that bought me some time. I looked at the clock and realized my mother would be just getting off her shift at the hospital. So I decided to call her and find out what I should do.
This all ran through my mind in seconds.
When I told her what happened, she told me to hang tight, keep pressure on it, and she'd be home in a few minuets. I then got to work with my one good hand pulling off sweats, pulling on jeans, finding my wallet and my bag.
While I waited, I took another peak at my wound and saw that the bleeding had slowed considerably, at least enough for me to properly assess the wound. It was deep but looked like it would only need 2 stitches. Maybe three if they stitched inside the flap, I mean, 2 to 3 stitches is nothing in caparison to my original scar that took about 9 on the surface alone...and thinking about this is what triggered my seed of doubt.
Maybe it wasn't as bad as I made it out to be? Maybe I had overreacted because of my history and because it's my wrist again? Maybe it didn't even need stitches?
The bleeding by this point was very slow thanks to all the pressure I'd been applying, so by the time my mother got to the building I was feeling rather pathetic, embarrassed, and frankly I felt bad because I felt like I had worried her over nothing. I started telling her right away that I probably didn't have to go to the ER, all the while showing her my wound. When she saw it, she said she could take care of it, but that if I wanted we could still go to the hospital cause it could probably use a stitch.
My heart sank...Confirmation...I overreacted...I was an idiot....
You would think I would be happy that it wasn't as bad as I thought, but instead I felt horrible.
So I told her I rather her handle it.
Last thing I needed was to head to the hospital, running into all kinds of people we both know, for something as sad as a one stitch gash.
When we got upstairs, she got to work.
First out came the dusty first-aid kit (our "Osama Bin Laden Kit"...yes it's that old...lol), and her glasses. As she was prepping, she asked if I had cleansed the wound. I told her no, and explained what I'd done. She then proceeded to put on her glasses, grab my arm, and drag me under the light over the butcher block (she can get a bit ruff in emergency mode...lol)
She froze.
I could see something bothered her, but she shook whatever it was off, and proceeded to check it.
Since neither of us were sure if the wound was clean, she brought me to the sink, turned on the faucet, and ran water over my wrist.
I was blinded by a searing flash of white hot pain...
That was the pain I'd been waiting for...
I gasped as it stabbed through my wrist and made me cry out, but like the macho I am, I didn't pull my arm away. She apologized repeatedly as she continued to rinse my wrist under the water, washing away the caked dried blood and any debris that might have been left over. After she was sure the wound was rinsed, next came the iodine.
Just seeing that dark orange stain and smelling it's unique odor brought back memories of my many past mishaps. The iodine didn't hurt as bad as the water thank God, just a low burn that lasted a few annoying minuets.
After everything was properly coated, she placed a gauze pad over it, and grabbed the ace bandage. Because I have a tendency to get annoyingly inquisitive when in crises mode, I asked her why the ace and not the gauze roll or adhesive tape? She simply said she wanted to keep the pressure on it till she could find some steri-strips to use. I thought it seemed a bit much but who was I to argue.
It wasn't until a little while later, when she was applying the steri-strips, that I really noticed her concern.
She way too quiet, way too careful, way too business like about applying each strip, and while examining it she made her "I don't like this" noise (best way I can describe it is as a sort of a "hmm" like when you question something but don't what to say anything), but when I asked her about it, she just gave me the classic "everything's fine" line.
That was it...I knew something was up, but by this point I was crashing from my adrenalin high, and the pain was pushing through my weakened senses.
She finished by wrapping the ace over my wrist again, and this time I knew better then to ask why.
The next day I woke up sore from head to toe, probably from all the previous days tension, but I was determined that this stupid injury wasn't going disrupt my routine.
I went about my day as I always do, even exercising (though careful not to stretch my wrist and doing mostly lower body).
By the time she came to check on my injury, I had sweated straight through the steri-strips and they needed to be replaced. But when she saw the wound, she again became very focused, quiet, and made that noise.
Well the noise did it....
I'd had enough with being placated, and I was determined to find out why she kept acting funny when she looked at my wound. So I confronted her about it.
At first she denied being worried, but when I described her behavior, even down to the little sound she makes, she laughed then came clean.
She was worried about the wound.
At the beginning it didn't look like much to her, but once she saw it in the light, with her glasses, she realized it wasn't as small a wound as she thought. Every time she looks at it, she's worried that it's gonna get infected, or it wont heal right. Then with a sigh she told me that it probably would have been best if we had gone to the hospital to get it stitched up. She just felt like she may have made a bad call....
Now I was confused...
First it was bad, then it wasn't, now it is again...
My head was spinning...
But...I realized at this point, it didn't matter.
I told her not to worry. I'll keep it clean, I'll keep using the strips for as long as there needed, and if it gets infected, I go to the doc, let them check it out, get some antibiotics, and go home.
No big deal.
And that's what I've been doing...
Since then I've been able to take the ace bandaged off occasionally to let my wrist breathe, but if I'm cleaning or exercising, it goes back on. It still hurts, and the pain gets a bit worse the more it heals, but so far so good. I wont have to wear an ace for the wedding (thank God) and I have yet to tell the bride of my mishap, in fact I'm not planing to.
She'll see it the day of the wedding when I meet her to get her into her dress, and I'll probably get hit over the head for it, but the last thing I want to do is give her anything else to worry about.
I consider this experience a learning lesson for when the Apocalypse comes and we have to rely on field medicine...lol
Thanks for listening to my LONG ASS story...
I promise the next blog will be shorter...lol
Next blog "Return of the Cousins"...
(1st photo by Jelena13, Photobucket and is directly linked)
(2nd photo is of my hand after I got all taped up and my comment about the incident...lol)
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