(no subject)
My sister is getting married next month and I've been swamped with planning all sorts of stuff and getting details arranged etc. I had my day planned Monday to get up and take her shopping for a bra and panties, then on to dressmaker for a fitting and spend a few hours going over some of the wedding details while we wait for the woman to make adjustments to the dress and Pepper to periodically fit again. I had a ton of phone calls on my list to make which included pricing printing places for invitations. Yup, those still aren't done yet.
I wake up, instead, to "Jamie, I think I cut my finger off".
Steve is standing at the kitchen sink with his left hand under running water, the end of his middle finger gone. Yup, I think that counts as cutting off part of his finger. So I get the "where" and head towards the back door. First thing I notice is that the outside light isn't on. I pause to ask if he'd had it on while out there. Nope.
So I flip on the light and start searching for the tip in front of the garage. By then he's joined me with his hand wrapped in a towel and he's answering my next question "how".
He said it was supposed to rain today. We had recently obtained a second dryer that we're going to have hooked up so I'll essentially have a mini laudromat to get through laundry more quickly. He wanted to put the dryer into the garage. It isn't an electric garage door. When he pulled the rod holding the door up out from beneath the door, it started to rush down. He turned and put his hands up to stop it. Voila, there was the fingertip, squished between two of the door panels.
I frantically begin trying to open the door. I'm in a hurry because he's losing blood. He informs me once it's shut, it can only be opened from inside. Oh fuck.
Now this poses a problem. I'm an arachnophobe. The inside of that garage is dripping with spiders. Wolf spiders, big hairy jumpers, every kind imaginable, they're everywhere. So he goes inside and begins to lift the door and I extract the flattened fingertip onto my palm. It's seriously flat, the fingernail is intact, not even a crack, but the tip is almost as flat as a piece of paper.
I rush inside and grab a ziplock baggie and open the freezer door. No ice. Shit. I do have popsicles! I grab two, still in wrappers, and put one on each side of the flat fingertip, grab cell phone and out the door we go. We both forget out wallets. No insurance cards and no ID. Now it's a stupid Jamie moment. He was already light-headed from blood loss and I just wanted to get him to ER.
So we get there, he's immediately taken back and I'm doing the paperwork. When I get back there, his hand is propped on a sterile pad and the doctor is examining the open wound. The tip is now in a biohazard bag with ice and the nurse giggling. I comment that surely she has seen worse and her response is "Nope, that's it, that's the worse I've seen." Steve then remarks that he wonders if they will let him have one of the popsicles. EWWWWW. That's just fucking nasty.
Doc is concerned about the end of his finger, that he may have broken off bone so he orders an x-ray. The tech comes in with a portable and snaps the shots. In a few moments we're told he has an appointment with the Hand Center for surgery, handed the X-ray films, a pain script in elixir form since weeny butt can't swallow pills, and the bio-bag with tip. Doc properly numbs the hand, he's wrapped and we're off.
Up at the hand center, the next doc is examining the severed finger and x-rays and laying out the options to Steve. Either endure multiple surgeries to restore a somewhat normal looking finger, or be done with it that day and remove the remainder of the bone down to the next joint and sew the flap of skin over the wound. Steve takes prize #2!
So after he becomes known as "Stubby" among my family members and friends, I sit in recovery with him and decide to get serious (all of us have been joking all day, at his expense). I ask him if he's alright, he did just lose a piece of his body, albeit a small one, but it was still a very traumatic day for him. When his fingertip was stuck between the panels, it was mostly severed, but still caught. He had a moment to ponder whether to yell for help or to pull it free. He pulled. That had to be a terrible moment itself. So I was concerned about his mental state at this point. He was pale and shaking. He said he was fine, just that he could feel it was missing.
So now he's wrapped up, going to physical therapy and a follow-up Thursday, been restricted and elavated, iced and drugged (he realized the importance of pain medicine over alcohol finally and left the beer alone long enough to take the medication after the numbness wore off, surgery pain is WAY more severe than anything he's ever had before).
So this tops any of the previous Stupid Steve Stories of the accident prone moron. I told him to up his insurance. And for the record. It didn't rain that day, or the next.
I wake up, instead, to "Jamie, I think I cut my finger off".
Steve is standing at the kitchen sink with his left hand under running water, the end of his middle finger gone. Yup, I think that counts as cutting off part of his finger. So I get the "where" and head towards the back door. First thing I notice is that the outside light isn't on. I pause to ask if he'd had it on while out there. Nope.
So I flip on the light and start searching for the tip in front of the garage. By then he's joined me with his hand wrapped in a towel and he's answering my next question "how".
He said it was supposed to rain today. We had recently obtained a second dryer that we're going to have hooked up so I'll essentially have a mini laudromat to get through laundry more quickly. He wanted to put the dryer into the garage. It isn't an electric garage door. When he pulled the rod holding the door up out from beneath the door, it started to rush down. He turned and put his hands up to stop it. Voila, there was the fingertip, squished between two of the door panels.
I frantically begin trying to open the door. I'm in a hurry because he's losing blood. He informs me once it's shut, it can only be opened from inside. Oh fuck.
Now this poses a problem. I'm an arachnophobe. The inside of that garage is dripping with spiders. Wolf spiders, big hairy jumpers, every kind imaginable, they're everywhere. So he goes inside and begins to lift the door and I extract the flattened fingertip onto my palm. It's seriously flat, the fingernail is intact, not even a crack, but the tip is almost as flat as a piece of paper.
I rush inside and grab a ziplock baggie and open the freezer door. No ice. Shit. I do have popsicles! I grab two, still in wrappers, and put one on each side of the flat fingertip, grab cell phone and out the door we go. We both forget out wallets. No insurance cards and no ID. Now it's a stupid Jamie moment. He was already light-headed from blood loss and I just wanted to get him to ER.
So we get there, he's immediately taken back and I'm doing the paperwork. When I get back there, his hand is propped on a sterile pad and the doctor is examining the open wound. The tip is now in a biohazard bag with ice and the nurse giggling. I comment that surely she has seen worse and her response is "Nope, that's it, that's the worse I've seen." Steve then remarks that he wonders if they will let him have one of the popsicles. EWWWWW. That's just fucking nasty.
Doc is concerned about the end of his finger, that he may have broken off bone so he orders an x-ray. The tech comes in with a portable and snaps the shots. In a few moments we're told he has an appointment with the Hand Center for surgery, handed the X-ray films, a pain script in elixir form since weeny butt can't swallow pills, and the bio-bag with tip. Doc properly numbs the hand, he's wrapped and we're off.
Up at the hand center, the next doc is examining the severed finger and x-rays and laying out the options to Steve. Either endure multiple surgeries to restore a somewhat normal looking finger, or be done with it that day and remove the remainder of the bone down to the next joint and sew the flap of skin over the wound. Steve takes prize #2!
So after he becomes known as "Stubby" among my family members and friends, I sit in recovery with him and decide to get serious (all of us have been joking all day, at his expense). I ask him if he's alright, he did just lose a piece of his body, albeit a small one, but it was still a very traumatic day for him. When his fingertip was stuck between the panels, it was mostly severed, but still caught. He had a moment to ponder whether to yell for help or to pull it free. He pulled. That had to be a terrible moment itself. So I was concerned about his mental state at this point. He was pale and shaking. He said he was fine, just that he could feel it was missing.
So now he's wrapped up, going to physical therapy and a follow-up Thursday, been restricted and elavated, iced and drugged (he realized the importance of pain medicine over alcohol finally and left the beer alone long enough to take the medication after the numbness wore off, surgery pain is WAY more severe than anything he's ever had before).
So this tops any of the previous Stupid Steve Stories of the accident prone moron. I told him to up his insurance. And for the record. It didn't rain that day, or the next.