Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on January 10, 2013

Sometimes I look at my life and think “this stuff only happens to me.” I mean, I’ve had some weird shit happen in my life. And last night was no different.

I will preface this by telling you all I’m just fine.

A big part of Whole 30 is meal planning and prep. Since anything pre-made is processed and full of junk (and SUGAR!), you can’t pick something up on the go. The only on the go thing that works is a hardboiled egg or a handful of nuts. So I spend a lot of my time cooking and prepping for the week.

This week was no different. The only difference was my degree of laziness. I had bought sweet potatoes to make sweet potato fries to go with my carne asada. I bought these on Sunday. I didn’t actually get around to peeling or slicing them until Wednesday night.

That was my first mistake.

I had already finished dinner, sans sweet potatoes, but I decided in a stroke of genius to peel and cut the potato for Thursday’s dinner! SO SMART! So I went about this and thought “I’m going to use my new mandoline to make this easier!”

That was my second, and probably final, mistake. But it was a doozy.

This mandoline is new. It has the safety handle thing so you don’t chop your fingers off. I’ve always, always, always been afraid of mandolines and their SHARP, SHARP blades. Having that holder/handle thing was the only way I would use it. And I have, with no incidents.

Until last night.

I used the handle thing on the potato, until it was too small and not working so well. This is when I decided to use my hand, thinking “I’m smart enough not to slice my finger! I’m not an idiot!”

Hahahahahahaha.

I sliced off a chickpea sized chunk of the top of my right index finger. A rather large chunk, as far as those things go. In fact, the doctor said I came within about a millimeter of clipping the bone, which would have caused a lot more problems, so WHEW!

Here is problem number one with living by yourself – when you’re bleeding profusely and running around the house in circles, there is no one there to help. I literally had no idea what to do. The only thing I knew was that I HAD to go to the emergency room. A band aid wasn’t going to cut it.

First thing I did was I called the Urgent Care on the corner to see if they were open. They weren’t and told me to go to the ER. Then I panicked because where the fuck was the closest hospital? And how was I going to get there? You can’t call an ambulance for this, right? Also, I’m not paying an ambulance charge!

Then I called a friend of mine. Her phone rang twice and I was like “what the hell am I going to say? It will take her longer to get here than if I were driving myself to the hospital!” So I hung up.

(I had remembered about the hospital close to my house. Bonus! It’s the hospital I was born at, no shit!)

At this point the oven timer went off.

OH, RIGHT! I’M BAKING A FRITATTA!

I turned off the oven, left it in there. Then I realized I was wearing Santa Claus pajama pants and no bra. So SOMEHOW, without the use of one finger, an important finger, I might add, I got on some yoga pants and a bra. I drew the line at socks and just slipped on some shoes, grabbed my purse and drove down the street.

Everything after that was pretty uneventful. The ER was not packed, at all, THANK GOD. I was fast tracked and brought back pretty quickly. Which was good because the blood, OMG SO MUCH BLOOD.

(Side note, the triage nurse asked about my medications. I told her I was on Prozac. And she said “what’s that?” And I just looked at her and was like “an anti-depressant.” And she looked at me and then my finger and was like “oh, you’re depressed?” YES, AND I TRIED TO OFF MYSELF BY CHOPPING OFF THE TIPPY TOP OF MY FINGER! FAIL!) (That was the first time in a really long time I was embarrassed about being on anti-depressants. At a hospital. Talking to a nurse. Yeesh!)

The doctor checked it out. Realized it was a gusher and that I probably hit a blood vessel or two and I would need stitches. This meant numbing me up, so yay! Pain, pain go away!

She numbs my finger up, making it look like a sausage with all the liquid she pumped in there and the pain started to subside. So she got all ready to stitch me up. She put the needle in and I jumped 10 feet in the air because while the base of my finger was feeling good, the tip, the exposed nerve part, was not numb! She tried at a different spot with the same result, yet this time she had to put the stitch in so, yeah, feeling a stitch go through skin? Not fun.

She finally put the numbing shit right on the tip of my finger, shooting a needle UNDERNEATH MY FINGERNAIL TO NUMB IT ALL! OH SWEET JESUS!

Sorry, I just fainted remembering this. I actually think I blocked it out.

Then it was all fine. All stitched up and still gushing blood. So they put something on it to help with the clotting and then it stopped. I was whisked away for X-Rays, to make sure I didn’t hit the bone. I came very close, but was fine. So I left with a prescription for antibiotics and a note to call a hand specialist to make an appointment with him.

Oh yes, because I will probably need a skin graft. I’ll find out more next week. *HEADDESK*

And there was this:

So that was my Wednesday night. Now I have to walk around with my finger looking like a giant tampon. But at least I still have a finger. And know mildly how I act in crisis mode. Oh, and where the closest hospital is.

Categories: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, Medical Mishaps, Spinsterville Here I Come
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