Keeping Me in Stitches

Nothing helps to make the season bright like a trip to the emergency room. It's all my fault. I made the mistake of saying out loud the other day, "Gee, this is the first December in several years that someone in the family hasn't had surgery or needed medical treatment of some kind." I slapped my hand over my mouth as soon as those words slipped from my tongue, but it was too late. I had already put some kind of hoodoo, voodoo, double jinx curse on us. It was only fitting that I was the one who ended up needing the ER. That will teach me to keep my big mouth shut. Maybe I should have had the doctor sew that up too while he was sewing up my hand.

I was trying to open a box delivered by the UPS man. With the blade from some scissors I opened up my hand instead, right in that bend between the thumb and forefinger. "Yippy Skippy!," I shouted. Well, something close to that only a little more blue. Sorry Santa. I knew right away it was going to need stitches, but I kept putting it off hoping that oozing bleeding gap would magically seal up while it was trapped under a big wad of gauze. It did get a little better while I did a load of laundry and went for a run. When I finally peeled back the gauze it was obvious that cut would never heal in that location without a little help. With a pain level of two, no massive bleeding and no chest pain, I knew I would be low on the triage list when we got to the hospital, so I took a book and a snack.

The ER was swamped, of course. Is it ever not busy when you're there? There were the usual characters: the poor wailing baby who probably has a painful ear infection, the kid with the broken leg, someone with the flu who looks as if he'll yap down your back any minute, the guy doubled over with a kidney stone and an 89 pound elderly lady delirious with dehydration. We've been pretty lucky in that the few times we've needed the emergency room it hasn't been a dire emergency, except that time Hubby fell off the roof and I thought he had nearly killed himself. Remind me to blog about ladder safety one day. Anyway, yesterday's time in the waiting room was a good reminder of just how healthy we are. I felt a little out of place with my little old laceration. Miraculously, we were out of there in two and a half hours. I ended up with a few stitches and a tetnus shot. I couldn't remember the last time I had a tetnus shot. Probably when I was a kid and my mother the nurse made me get one. I didn't want my jaws locking up and hampering my ability to eat this holiday season, so I got the shot. We were home in time for dinner and still had time to drive around and look at Christmas lights. My cut should heal nicely, and the stitches should be out in ten days. And the best news of all? We finally found a pair of sharp scissors in this house.