Saturday, December 10, 2005

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.

My plan was to post pictures of his gnarled mutilated thumb tonight... but all you get is this...


We were planning on changing the dressing tonight, but just the act of taking the outer wrapping off made Ryan decide to wait another day before taking off the gauze (it's pretty stuck to his stitched area.)
Here you can see that the over all apendage isn't too swollen.. at least not like it was a couple of nights ago.



And of course, these posts wouldn't be complete without a picture of my gut and an update from goonland. Here we are from the front... I don't see much difference from 2 weeks ago.

And here is the obligatory side view. Again, not much change, is there?

All in all things are good. Eating has resumed again, and the last barf episode was brought on by a bad smell in my office, not by food alone. I think I've felt movement, once or twice, like something painting from the inside out. No weight has been gained, but such is life. I eat when I'm hungry, till I'm full, can't do much more than that!
We finally chose a midwife last week. She is one of the homebirth superstars in town. Everyone loves her, and subsequently so do we. She has a stellar reputation, and great experience. At our interview with her, she used the doppler to let us hear the heart beat. Swoosh swoosh swoosh. love that! My first prenatal is next week, where we weigh in, get measured and pee in cups and what not.
Hopefully tomorrow or the next day I can show you the damage Ryan did to his lovely left thumb. 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.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Korin and Ryan, Sorry to hear about Ryan's thumb. I hope it dosen't give him too much trouble.Thankfully he didn't cut it off.(He then would have had a thumb like Grandpa Rasmussen. I enjoy Korin's growing up goonie and knitting zen. Love you both oh I mean three!!!Aunt Mary - Uncle Joe says Hi too.

Anonymous said...

Blade guard and push stick come to mind as great Christmas/winter Slostice presents. As a fellow tablesawer and can relate, but just not as deep. Maybe a pint of Dead Guy Ale will easy the pain. Looking forward to seeing you guys next week. Jason