Might not ride for a while

[mittico68]

Yeah, nice story...
But I wonder how many time did it get to write it, by using just one hand only?

[JagLite]

Ha!
Great write up to give us a laugh.   

[CDNRatMan]

  ok  a few questions......and observations:

1. why were you using an instrument of MD (mass destruction) thought you were not allowed to play with sharp toys.
2. why were you even in the kitchen, of having 3 or is it 4 wives surly one of them is a better cook then you.
3. now you know why people tell you to have a sharp knife rather then a dull one.
4. to stubborn to go for proper medical help right. Oh you have to pay for it.
5. liquid medication, milk is not that for sure, now a couple shots of Crown Royal might count.
6. At your age the Dr's all seem to be young lads now.
7. Your buddy should have spewed in your shoes just because.
8. so what we now know is your heading for a sex change operation correct.
9. and pray tell why you can not ride?

[DC]

Okay, so Friday night I was chop chop chopping away at some cabbage, and then bored as I was, I thought "Why don't I try chopping part of my finger off to see what that's like?".  So having lots of rapid fire momentum, whittling this head of cabbage down, the winning blow came down right through the finger nail and through the meat underneath.  I never realized what a penchant I had for dancing/hopping on one foot whilst screaming and blurting out words in some strange new language I am not familiar with.  The blood was also spurting out in time to my hopping.  No one can accuse me of not having rhythm.  I held my hand firmly against my side to stop the bleeding, which took about 20 minutes.  My t-shirt was drenched, as were my shorts.

Then I finally got brave enough to deal with the wound.  So I washed it off in the bathroom.  My hand was covered in clotted blood and as I was washing it off, pieces of clot-encased cabbage were starting to appear in the sink.  I thought to myself that I may have stumbled upon a new product here.  After all, there are chocolate covered grasshoppers and the like.  Well, I dismissed that as I needed to keep my focus elsewhere.  So I got it lightly bandaged up.  There should be some sort of contest for those who can bandage a wound the quickest when there is no one around and you only have one usable hand.  One of the rules would be you can't have any unused pieces of tape stuck to where they shouldn't be.

You might ask at this point, am I heading out now for medical attention. Welllll, not exactly.   You see, there was no one else home, and in the state I was in (lost lots of blood and a questionable BAC), I probably should not be driving.  So I doubled down with some liquid medication.  I figured, I would give it a day and see what happens.  During that night, whilst sleeping, it bled on and off a little, just enough to make a mess.

The next day I went out with one of my friends.  He asked me what happened.  So he got the whole story.  Then he said Whatever you do don't show me that finger.  Well, that couldn't be helped, as I made one of my signature Elizabethan-collar bandages for it, and you could see right into it from the end.  He cursed me when he saw it, threatening to throw up on my shoes.  He insisted I go to the hospital and I refused.  We got into a big argument about it and both stormed away.  Then I was at a store later that day and a clerk had the same reaction.  Others were weighing in, but I thought that maybe time would heal it.

On Sunday morning, I decided to cave in and go to the hospital.  I dreaded the thought of going to the ER. . . . the long wait, the greasy paged, dog-eared magazines, as well as the normal sights and sounds you would expect.  I was lucky in that they took me pretty quickly back into the triage area.  This hospital was pretty close by, but was not the best, as it was about 3 stars out of 5.  Good enough to go to for the kind of injury I had.  But I would not go there for a colonoscopy, as you might come out with a sex change operation.  As they say, accidents will happen.

They had some difficulty in initially assessing it, as the entire end of the digit was encased in a multilayered series of clots.  So they first soaked the finger in a sterile solution.  That helped to break up the clot sculpture a bit, but they needed to take stronger measures, as this was only having limited results.  After all, this is about two days old at this point.  So out came a fresh bottle of hydrogen pyroxide.  I knew it was unused, as the nurse removed the security ring from the top, before twisting the cap off and piercing the protective covering underneath with her thumb nail. . . which went into the bottle.  She dried off her thumb, but I still got to enjoy whatever was growing underneath her thumb nail, as she poured the HP over the wound.

During all this, some young guy pokes his head in the triage room I was in while the nurse was attending to the wound.  He said to her "Hey!  How's it goin?".  I'm looking at his guy in his hoody and sneakers and wondering how the pizza delivery guys knows the nurse in here.  I figured maybe people order pizzas while they're sitting in the waiting room for hours, and he got to know her from making so many deliveries there.. . . She finishes up some of the prep procedures, then says the attending physician will be in to see me shortly.  About 5 minutes later, the pizza guy comes in and starts asking me about my injury and why I was there.  I thought that odd why they let the delivery guy roam around in the ER triage area bothering patients.  Then his questions got more probing and technical.  Wow, that was amazing for a pizza delivery guy.  Then I saw he had an ID badge hanging around his neck.  He definitely was not a Papa John's, Little Ceasar, or Pizza Hut employee.  He saw me looking at the badge and said "Oh, I'm Dr. so-and-so".      

So the doc was in and out of the room a few times, while the clot sculpture was continuing to dissolve in the HP bath.  Each time he returned, I was hopeful he would bring a pizza with him.  If he did, he ate it himself in the hallway. . .  You may end up with a lot of things at this hospital, but it will not be pizza.   . . . With the surface of the injury cleaned enough to see what's going on, the doc begins to assess it.  "Well, it looks like you lost part of the nail, but it's not too bad".  Not too bad?  I guess he meant you probably won't lose the finger or even the end, and there's a good chance the nail will grow back.  He said "I took off part of the nail while I was cleaning it.  Wanna see it now?".   NO!  How about you look at it for me and just tell me about it.  I'm not looking at that.  He said "You don't want to look at it?."  NO!   

So then he bandaged it up like you see in the pics.  I think he did a pretty good job.  I complimented him on the excellent visual presentation of the dressing.  Not bad for a pizza delivery guy. . . . .He said he would give me a splint for the finger to stabilize it and protect it.  But he said the dressing was too large to accommodate the splint.  He said, as I graduate to a smaller dressing later in the week, then I could apply the splint.. . . A few minutes later another staff member comes in with the splint.  She says "I'm here to put your splint on".  I told her the doc doesn't want it on now, he's just sending it home with me to use later on.  She left, consulted with the doc, came back and said "Here, you can take this home". . . . Remember, colonoscopy vs. sex change operation. . . . With that, I was finished and only had to sit there, rotting away for another half hour, when they lost the paperwork to check me out.    . . . Remember, colonoscopy vs. . . . . Well, never mind.