In Stitches

Well, I made it over 30 years without a broken bone or stitches. The broken bone streak is still intact, but, the stitches streak ended last night.

I was working on my sons Pinewood Derby car with a wood chisel. I was almost done with it when it slipped through the back of the car and through a couple inches of my hand. It started bleeding pretty good, and because my daughter was playing in the back of my van in the garage at the time I cut myself, I ran into the house yelling for my wife to go get her. My wife came in and followed the trail of blood to the bathroom where I was pretty near passing out and asked if I still had my finger, so apparently, there was a lot of blood, because my wife doesn't freak out that easily. So I got a towel on it and was able to stop the bleeding after a couple minutes. My wife called the advice nurse and after talking to me, they gave me an appointment at the minor injury clinic at Kaiser. I cut myself around 6 or so, and the appointment for us was at 7. My wife called her parents, who were over by our house trying to escape the Texans currently holding her house hostage, and they agreed to come watch the kids so I could be driven to the hospital. There was nobody at the minor injury clinic when we got there so we got right in and they put some numbing stuff on my hand and took my blood pressure on the arm without the gash and sent me in to see the doctor in the same room I had just recently taken my son to for his foot. I was far less anxious this time even though it was my own hand that was going to get that shot of Lydocane and stitches.

Now,since you can't see my hand and I don't think you want to see the picture I took with my phone, I'll describe it's location. If you were to lay your left hand on it's palm, and then notice where your index fingers knuckle is, the knuckle closest to your hand, the cut runs from near the palm most of the way up to the knuckle, and about a half inch deep, according to the doctor. But also according to the doctor, I was lucky enough not to sever any tendons or nerves and I still have full motion of my finger. I also have four stitches holding it together now. It was going to be three, but in conversation with the doctor, he asked me what my lucky number was. I said 14. I don't know if that really my 'lucky' number but it's a favorite of mine. He said that made my lucky number 5, because 1 + 4 = 5. H sait that there wouldn't be that many stitches. He said that three might be enough, but since 4 was his lucky number, that's how many I got.

I didn't get a pic of the stitches right after he put them in, but I wish I would have, since I have to leave the bandage on until tomorrow night. But I'll take a pic when I change the dressing and hopefully it's not getting infected right now. It does hurt now, but it's kind of a burning sensation with some bruisish aching with it. I can't type really well because I can only really use one hand to do it. Otherwise, thankfully, I'm fine. I hear I'm going to get a scar from this. It will be a lasting, loving reminder of my sons first Pinewood Derby, which is  much better trophy than anything he could win at the race next weekend.