14 weeks…
One minute you’re sitting on the couch, enjoying some tea, and the next thing you know, there is blood everywhere and you’re on your way to the ER.
No, I wasn’t bleeding, sillies! My lovely, fantastic, talented, home remodelling husband accidentally shred his left thumb on the table saw Thursday night. He is in the process of framing in a new closet in a room that never had one (well it did when the house was built in 1916). Apparently he had the thought that he should stop for the night, but then decided to cut ONE LAST PIECE of wood. Well, as luck would have it, it was the one piece of wood that would earn him his first ever stitches!
I was sitting on the couch, chatting and finishing a cabled hat, when I heard the saw stop, and him come upstairs. I heard him call my name, albeit quietly…I muted the TV and said “did you call me?” no response. So i turn it back on, assuming he was talking to the cat. The kitchen sink is running, and I hear him again. I turn the TV off and say “what???” He replies, “I cut myself”… when silence ensued, I knew it had to be bad. I walk into the kitchen, he’s leaning over the sink and he says “we need to go to the hosptial”. This is when I KNOW it’s bad… cause normally, I’m the one who has to convince him that he’s really sick, or really hurt or really needs care. So I run up stairs to put some clothes on, as I was in my PJs and it’s 28 outside.
All the way to the hospital (I had to look up the closest hospital, since we’ve never gone to the ER in all the years we’ve been living here) he was pale, and dizzy. The first thing they say, as we’re checking in at the front desk is “Is it attached?” For some reason, I find this funny. Of course it’s attached. If he had cut his thumb OFF, I wouldn’t have said “my husband cut his thumb on a table saw” I would have said (and have been a bit less calm) “My husband cut his thumb OFF on a table saw”… duh!
Thankfully, it was a short wait (I’m sure it seemed long to him!) they took us back, took a look at him, determined he needed stitches (again, duh! pretty deep, across the whole pad of his thumb and there is meat hanging out of it!!) and put us in a room. We watched some South Park while waiting for the doc. Everyone was super nice, and relatively quick. There was a tetanus shot (um, yeah, saw blade meets thumb pad? yep, tetanus shot!) and then finally a nerve block (that they had to do three times to numb that sucker!). They cleaned it up and the nurse said “Oh it’s pretty now!”… oh no, not pretty, It was fabulously gnarly! And finally the stitches. I think he ended up with 7-8 of them… and there was talk of needing to have a hand surgeon take a look at it in the future, as the scar would be bad, and likely need repair.
They dosed him with some vicodin and antibiotics and a mere three hours after we walked in, we were walking out…. him, drugged and throbbing, me tired and HUNGRY. It was decided that Mr. HandMeetsSaw would not be going to work tomorrow, so at 2 AM we stopped by his office to grab his laptop so he could work from home. We then stopped by the illustrious VooDoo donut (as they are open from 10PM-10AM) to feed the beast within.
Home again home again, jiggity jig… I’m finally in bed at 3 AM.
I wish I’d taken the camera to the ER, as it would have made blogging much more interesting, but since he was in pain, and a little freaked out, we left before I could think of it. (but yes, I was composing this entry in my head as we waited for the nerve block to kick in.)
Tonight we decided (well mostly Ryan) to take off the original bandage and change the dressing. Therefore there will be pictures!!!
So.. here’s the damage.
This is what it USED to look like!
Another close up of the damage.. cause I love the gore!
And the patient 
I’ll put up some pix when it’s healed a bit so you can see what it will look like. I do think there will be a trip to the hand surgeon in our future… unless the scar is less then I’m imagining!
