Then nurse briskly took my vitals, then asked to me to remove the towel so that she could see my errant digit. Remember: removing the towel meant removing the pressure, which meant pain! In addition, it meant pain also for my left hand, which, after a lot of blood loss prevention labor was starting to cramp up beautifully.
With a grimace and gritted teeth, I gently let go of the towel.
Maybe after all that pressure, the bleeding will be somewhat controlled.
Yeah, right.
The blood started gushing all over, and the nurse said, “Oh…um….put that towel back on!”
She grabbed a pack of gauze, tried to use it to stop the bleeding, and repeated the whole process with another pack of gauze. Oh, and all while talking about how she would like to get my wound neat and clean, and how the emergency room didn’t clean up her son after his bike wreck. I quote: “It was like, ‘I mean, gee, can we at least dig the shards of glass out of his scalp?”
So comforting, Mrs. Nurse. May I recommend you for a bedside manners seminar?
Finally, she gave up on stopping the bleeding and called in the doctor. He looked at it, declared it a complete evulsion (doctor-speak for “you took a whole chunk off”), and proceeded to wrap it quite efficiently.
Doc: “So now we’re going to use a product called gel-foam to help stop the bleeding. It will give something for the blood to clot on….but, it does have a tendency to stick to the wound.”
Great.
(By the way, gel-foam does stick to wounds. A lot.)
After encasing my finger in dressing of various forms until it resembled more of a bratwurst that an actual human body part, I was released (after signing some more forms, of course. Now everybody has my autograph! J)
Throughout this all, I didn’t cry, didn’t scream, just made some slightly funky, “this-is-not-precisely-a-pleasant-sensation” faces.
Mom, however, chose to make up for it by almost fainting in the chair. Oh well…at least the chairs were soft!
We stopped by work to check back in, let my comrades know that I was still among the living, and to pick up my lunch. Everybody flocked around me (I’m popular!! Enjoy it while it lasts, right?)
Then, after all the regular “Oh, I’m sorry! Oh, I’m glad you’re okay” stuff, this happens:
Brittney: “Oh, by the way, James found the hunk of your finger.”
Alex: “Ohhh….I looked for it, but I couldn’t find it.”
Brittney: “Well, James did.”
James walks out from the back and says: “Yeah….I found it. It….was…pretty gross.”
He made a face of absolute disgust, and proceeded to inform me how there was a little bit of nail hanging off of it, and how to almost puked, and how he did his best to dump it in the trash can without touching it. Oh, those faces! Honestly, I think it was almost worth the whole ordeal just to see them. J
(And this is the guy, who, earlier in the day, was having a grand time playing with some hog eyeballs we had in the cooler at work….there’s something about human flesh, especially that of your friends, that is a whole different thing.)
We then headed home, we got Pizza King pizza (for my sake, Dad said J), and I slept quite well after my traumatic experiences….except for the occasional szgrngh sound that would pop into my mind.
The final diagnosis: I neatly removed a raisin-sized chunk off of my right index finger via the deli slicer (and my own dumbness). I also managed to remove about 1/4 to 1/3 of the fingernail. Due to the heavy pressure I was able to provide, I did not lose excessive amounts of blood (although brain cells are not out of the question! J).
There is no more broken skin, and I only wear a band-aid for light protection during the course of a normal day. I do all things normal at work, wearing gloves for maximum germ protection, always taking care to compliment the Lacey Swiss copiously before I slice it.
THE END
P.S. The Lord has used this wild time to teach me so much, help me finish some projects, and just be still and spend more time with Him. I can honestly say that I am thankful this happened to me.
P.S.S. Hope I made you laugh!!
Rant, Repose, and Ruminate 
Very amusing. Thank you.
Excellent makeover……John Caparulo not needed. 🙂
I often wonder how one can capture the full bends and twists of reality and life in language, treating them with both gravity and playfulness. Do we captivate or liberate our thoughts and feelings by once-for-all naming them and linking them together? Your essay provided a thoroughly-enjoyable read, both in form and content. It’s obvious you enjoy the deadly-serious game of thinking and expression. Don’t stop scouring through the dusty bits of language and thought to find that nonpareil word, nor be afraid to bend the man-made conventions of language in order to more accurately reflect the God-made order of the Logos. Life is grand, and deserves to be spoken of with the precision of a scientist and the love of a maestro.