Have you ever been in a position where you have to get stuff done and then, all of a sudden, something happens that prevents you from doing that stuff? Like, having to make a visit to the ER because of a very stupid mistake?
With Christmas upon us, I wonder if you could take a moment and travel back in time to November 27 of this year ~ the day before Thanksgiving. Charlotte and Pinky offered to host the feast, with the help of food offerings from other members of the family. I was to bring mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. My grandma’s recipe for pumpkin pie. I’d made it before and was confident I could replicate it once again.
Pie crust isn’t my forte, but with Grandma’s recipe I forged ahead and mixed the crust with the determination that it would be flakey and delicious. Next, the gut ingredients. Pumpkin, evaporated milk, spices, etc. I was opening the can of pumpkin and the can opener was being stubborn. Or was the can? Regardless, I couldn’t open the can properly. Frustrated, I took a fork to pry the can open and…ouch!
Dang! I gouged the pad of my left index finger, as well as cutting my left thumb. Oh well, I thought. A can cut is nothing to be too concerned about. Except the blood was coming forth from my finger in a way that wasn’t quite normal. Excessive might be a word. I grabbed a bunch of paper towels and ran upstairs to tell Husby I needed some help. He got some gauze and tape and wrapped my finger. The gauze was soaked through within thirty seconds. Husby said, “we have to go to urgent care or ER.”
I wrapped my finger in more gauze and an old dish towel. The bleeding wound’t stop! Husby drove me to the ER as I texted Charlotte to tell her of my plight. Perhaps I wouldn’t be able to make the pumpkin pie after all!
With a hand covered with a blood-soaked towel we walked into the emergency room. Not a life-threatening injury, but luckily there weren’t too many people there.
The triage nurse was awesome and wondered if I wanted to save the bloody towel in which I’d wrapped my finger. It was embroidered, after all (the towel, that is). Kind of her to ask . It was a rag towel with holes in it. “Throw it!”, I demanded.
When I was finally in one of those ER rooms a nurse’s aid came in and gave me a pail of water in which to soak my wound. “It’s gonna sting, isn’t it?”, I asked. “Yep,” she said. I plunged my hand into the antibacterial soapy water. Aaaaggggghhhhhh! After a while it felt kind of soothing.
See the Band-Aid on the thumb. Took care of that, cuz compared to the finger gouge it was a mere scratch. That that icky thing between the first and second knuckle of the finger? That’s a previous burn made to look horrible by the soaking in water. Pay attention to the ghastly, bloody gouge that got me to the ER! Capillaries in the fingers are a bloody mess!
When we got home three hours later, Husby checked on the half-opened can of pumpkin, which he’d put in the fridge before our trip to the ER. There was the entire pad of my left index finger stuck to the rim of the can of pumpkin. Ew! It was disposed of properly.
Charlotte got Pinky to buy a pumpkin pie for the Thanksgiving dinner and I was able to make the mashed potatoes. The pumpkin pie bought by Pinky was delicious, even though it wasn’t Grandma Harriet’s recipe.
The day after Thanksgiving Husby and I did a craft show. While I only had a Band-Aid on my finger that day, it was a struggle for me. I had pain on pressure and worries of more bleeding. I should have had a cast on my finger to gain more sympathy, but the Band-Aid sufficed. As a gift from the crafting gods, I had one of the best one-day shows in my history of one-day shows!
Today, twenty-three days after my injury, I can type, I can wash dishes, I can wrap presents…I’m pretty much back to normal. I’ll have a very interesting fingerprint. Scars tell wonderful tales of our lives.
Auntie B's Wax 