Lesson Learned: Get Out of Your Pajamas Before 1pm
Instead of being out partying all Halloweekend, I am at home drinking hot honey lemon water to get rid of this dang sore throat, and trying to keep the bandage on my stitches. Stitches you say? Let me elaborate.
I was trying to make these apple sandwiches. The ones above. Core an apple, slice in rings, slap some peanut butter on, and sprinkle some raisins (what I had) or chocolate chips (probably tastier). When you get to the bottom of the apple, its surprisingly hard to cut that last round, so I decided (like a genius, which here you can also substitute for the word dumbass) to cut the apple in my hand instead of the plate, then drop the apple to avoid cutting myself.
I'm sure it comes as no surprise when, a few seconds later I take my beloved Komachi knife, oh yeah, the one I blogged my love for, and slice straight through the apple and through my hand. To the bone. Like buttah.
If there is one thing you need to know about me, and one thing that will be repeated throughout this post, is that I have a low pain tolerance. It's virtually non-existant. I cry when I pull my hang nail. Does this paint enough of a picture?
I immediately grasp my hand in pain, then say aloud, "I think that white thing is my bone". Naturally, my course of action, is to do the following, in this order: rip open my first aid kit and put a sanitary cleansing wipe on my laceration (fancy word for cut I was reminded of at the hospital) and then call my dad. These freakout calls come so often, he is probably thinking what has my train wreck of a daughter done this time?
The conversation goes like this:
Dad: Hello...?
Me (crying, of course): Dad! I cut myself! I think to the bone! What I do I do?
Dad: Go to the heath center! Or the hospital!
Me (hysterically hyperventilating): It won't stop bleedinggggg
Me (hysterically hyperventilating): It won't stop bleedinggggg
Dad: Call public safety! Maybe they can walk you to the health center.
Me: The health center is a joke. What are they gonna do? I'm still in my pajamas.
Dad: YOU'RE STILL IN YOUR PAJAMAS? (It's one in the afternoon on a Wednesday).
Me (whimpering): I was just trying to eat an apple before I took a shower...
Dad: Are you alone?
Me: Yes Dad! I live by myself what do you think?! I'm going to call Courtney and see if she can walk me to Swedish.
After a phone call, and then a text basically saying "areyoubusyIthinkIcutmyselftotheboneandneedtogotothehospitalHELP", she hurries over after I throw on something I can wear outside my room. She advises me to wrap a dish towel around my hand tight, and hold it above my head, and it is in this fashion that I walk the ten minutes to Swedish ER, wearing sweats and uggs.
We arrive, and I'm seen within ten minutes. It's in the hospital bed I do the most waiting. I don't do hospitals.
I show one of the nurses the cut, and she goes "oh, let me get you an absorbing pad for that", in a sort of alarming tone. I, meanwhile, until that moment, had managed to stop bleeding and didn' think it was that bad, but she dashed all those fears with her tone.
Finally, Jason the physician's assistant arrives, carrying a needle (THAT'S not alarming at all). After doing a bunch of small talk which I wish he would skip, he winds up to tell me what we need to do. He is talking so slowly I fear the prognosis is surgery, and keep sneaking furtive glances at Courtney, who also looks worried. I ready myself to call my parents to tell them I love them and compose my will on my phone.
He actually proposes numbing the wound with an injection, cleaning it, probing it, then sewing it up. Legit stitches. I agree, because I see no other option. I am calm up until this point, despite having a low pain tolerance (adrenaline?), but when he explains the steps I start to cry then grab Courtney's hand.
Jason puts the needle directly into the wound (gag), and works his way around the perimeter. It stings then burns like he said it would, but Courtney and a nurse try to distract me with conversation. I chat about classes then stop in the middle and say, "I am never going to be able to have children! I can't stand the pain!" Everyone laughs and I try not to jostle my hand as Jason still has the needle in it.
I don't watch any steps of my patching up. Not the needle, and not the next step which they liken to pressure washing. I feel the nurse pumping saline into the wound with a whoosh, and I feel liquid trickling or gushing down in rivlets. I assume this is the saline, but wonder why Courtney is making weird faces and telling me not to look. It turns out that the liquid I felt was blood, not saline, and it was pooling in my palm periodically. I soak through two two-inch absorbing pads with blood.
Dear old Jason comes back, and he sticks something metal in my laceration, which is uncomfortable despite being instantly numb after he had stuck the needle of medicine in. He does inform me, though, that I didn't cut any tendons, which is good news, because cut tendons are harder to deal with. He finishes up with sewing in my stitches, which only hurts when the needle pierces my skin. Three stitches with eight knots each are in my left pointer finger joint until November 7th, 8am. You best believe the birthday princess was not about to have stitches on her birthday. Perfect birthday if it kills me!
I gotta give mad props to Courtney. She was truly the best person to take to the hospital with me because I was scared and close to losing it at points, and she just held my hand and I have honestly never laughed so much through the pain, it distracted me enough to get through the ordeal. Thanks girl!
"That's what happens when you eat healthy... imagine how easy your bag of cheetohs would've been to open" - a text from Abeni that pretty much sums up the situation and makes me laugh every time.
posted by Ally at 10:09 PM
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