Clumsy Katya: Part Three

So the Xondervan graciously cleaned up my trail of blood from the living room to the bathroom (including some on the wall, he said) and threw away the bloody quilt fabric. No need to put that in Baby Alex's quilt.

Since I'm on the HMO insurance plan, Xon called my primary care physician [PCP] on Monday to get a referral to a plastic surgeon. Unfortunately, in order for the hospital to release my ER records, I had to sign a release form. So I gussied myself up as best as I could, and we went to the doctor's office. I signed the form (which actually didn't need my signature, just my name and address--go figure) and asked if one of the nurses would mind changing my bandage. It was supposed to be changed every day, but when anyone got within ten feet of me, I had a mini panic attack. I did NOT want anybody even touching my arm, let alone my finger! But the nurse did a great job, and I was thankful to have that part over for the day.

Our PCP had to schedule the appointment with the plastic surgeon, so we waited... Apparently, it takes a few days to to fax ER records. :-) --A professor at work e-mailed me about a local surgeon who specializes in hands. So we called my PCP and requested him--Dr. Jim Moore. At this point, I was taking Lortab every six hours for pain, and Advil in between the Lortab doses. The Lortab made me pukey and sleepy, so I basically just stayed in bed for the next couple of days and cried quite a bit for no particular reason. I guess this kind of thing makes you emotional. --The drugs certainly don't help in that area.

Finally, on Wednesday my PCP called and said I could go see the surgeon on Thursday. Hooray!!!!!! --I sort of felt like I was in limbo, because I didn't know how bad the wound was. (I hadn't looked at it yet.) Would he have to do some sort of surgery? Would it heal on its own? Would I look like a freak? Would I have a fingerprint?

Finally, it was time for my appointment. It felt like Christmas! --I didn't want him to touch my finger, but I was excited to hear what he had to say. So we went to his office, and I wondered about all the people who were sitting in the waiting room. Were they there because of an injury? Or for cosmetic reasons? I had never been to a plastic surgeon before, but I was comforted by the fact that his office was REALLY nice. Surely he must have the latest equipment and techniques if he had that much money to decorate his office so well. Yes, I would be ok.

The nurse called me into the examining room, and we waited. The doctor came and examined my hand, pulled off the bandage that was stuck to the wound, and peeled off the cauterizing film that had been holding the wound together (which, again, felt like fire and was not my favorite experience ever). He asked if I had the fingertip to show him, but alas, the Xondervan and I had left it in a bag at the ER. Hope that didn't scare any of the nurses!

Dr. Moore told me to soak my finger in peroxide and change the bandage every day. He seemed to be upset that I wouldn't look at it, which made me feel like a moron (!!!!), but I assured him I could soak it every day without looking at it. After all, that's what the Xondervan is for. It had taken me a couple of days to get the picture out of my head of seeing a chunk of my finger on the floor, so I just didn't think it was best to have a bloody wound in my head, too. At least not until it had healed a little bit. I am very visual.

The doctor said no surgery was needed, that it would probably fill in with scar tissue. I asked if he thought it would heal completely, and he said yes. He thought it would take a month or two to grow some new skin, and within a year, it should be completely healed--nerve endings and all. Again, I had cut it just right! --So he just wanted to keep checking it to make sure it was healing properly. We made an appointment for the following Monday (ten days later). And that was all. We went out to the car, I had myself a really good cry, and then some chocolate-covered almonds as a reward. :-) That dude had not tried to be gentle.

My parents came for the weekend, which was nice because my mom's a nurse so she changed my bandage. I kept asking her if it looked normal, and she said, "Of course it doesn't look normal!" --I slept as much as I could, preparing myself to go back to work on Monday. I was really nervous about that, because I felt out of the loop and wasn't sure how much work I would be able to do since the majority of my job involves typing. --Even though I had just been gone a week, I felt like maybe I wouldn't fit in (Silly Katie...). But Wendy acted like nothing had changed, so after a few hours, I felt a little more confident and like I belonged again. Though I knew it was going to be a very long week! I was v-e-r-y s-l-o-w. --I'm sure Wendy got tired of everyone asking about it, but she was a champ. One grad student even asked if I would take the bandage off so he could see the damage. (Sounds like my sis!) But if I hadn't looked at it yet, I certainly didn't want anyone else to! I felt guilty because Wendy had to work so much overtime to cover for me. --Thank you, Wendy!

Well, that's about it for now. I went to the surgeon again today (and finally looked at my finger!), so at least one more installment of "Clumsy Katya" is yet to come. Whenever my right arm isn't tired. Farewell, loyal readers.

Clumsy Katya: Part Two

So we pulled in the parking lot at St. Mary's. Xon helped me put a jacket on (even though it's still 1000 degrees here) so everyone wouldn't see the hole in my t-shirt. I walked up to the registration desk, holding my little hand in a yellow washcloth. But before I could say, "I had an accident," the man at the desk said, "You need to be seen."

Yep.

So we went over to the nurses' station, but the nurse on duty was taking someone's blood pressure, so she wouldn't look up. There was a card sitting at the window, so Xon went ahead and filled it out, telling them just what our emergency was. "Cut her finger off," he wrote. --He didn't want to be a jerk like you see in the movies, but it didn't take too long for us to decide that we were more important than the man getting his blood pressure taken. I told Xon to just say, "Excuse me," so he did, and the nurse looked up and said, "Oh, you're bleeding."

Yep.

She let me come in the examining room after that. Xon showed her the tip of my finger in the bag of ice, and she said, "Oh, they won't be able to sew that back on!" --I asked her if she could please just tell me they could so I would feel better right then. She laughed. --I was serious.

She had me put my hand over the sink so she could bandage me up. I didn't look, but she said, "Oh! You did good!" --Now really, does anyone ever want to get a compliment on how well they chopped their finger off? Really?

I started to get woozy, so she made me take my jacket off (thus seeing the hole in my t-shirt). I sat down in a chair and told her I thought I was going to throw up. She gave me a bucket, and I did. Cheese quesadillas. Yum... --After that I felt MUCH better, though my finger was throbbing something awful. She took us to "the quiet room," (a dark room with a couch and a phone) and told us to wait. There we called my parents, my sis, Charles and Wendy, Bly, and Xon's dad. (Afterall, the last thing he had heard was Xon telling him he had to hang up because I had cut my finger off.) Dawn and Erich started telling jokes, and I told Dawn she needed to feel really guilty since I had been working on something for HER son.

An ambulence brought a severe case in, so the nurse said I had to wait. I was very thankful I was not the severe case. I spent the next hour praying that everything would turn out ok and thanking God that it was not my right hand and that I hadn't cut through the nail or gotten down to the bone. Really, if I had to cut part of my finger off, I did it just right. So I guess the sarcastic nurse was right afterall.

In the meantime, Charles and Wendy were nice enough to come get our groceries out of the car and take them home so they wouldn't spoil. I asked them to please not take them to our house, because there was blood all over. They sat and talked to us for a minute. Wendy commented that she really wanted to look in the bag with my fingertip. I laughed and said she could look, but I didn't want to see it. Poor Xon had to pick that thing off the floor and bring it with us. Yuck! Wendy decided she better not look at it. :-) --She was thoughtful enough to ask if they had given me anything for the pain, which meant a lot to me that she would think of that. But alas, they had not given me anything...

Charles and Wendy left, and Xon and I waited. The nurse came back in and said it would be two hours in the ER, so she was sending me over to Fast Track, which is sort of a step below the ER. A WONDERFUL nurse named Laura gave me some pain medicine and a Sprite. They put some cauterizing cream on my finger, which burned like fire, bandaged it up with a splint, and told me to see a plastic surgeon in the next couple of days. And thus, my trip to the ER was over. It only took about two hours, which flew by!

After that, we went to the pharmacy to fill my prescription, got some gauze, etc., and it was off to bed. I propped my arm up on a box, and "slept" with it vertically in the air all night. We had told Wendy that I probably wouldn't be at work the next day. She understood.

Hold your breath! There will be more tomorrow!

Clumsy Katya: Part One

Well, Wendy said I needed something exciting to talk about on my blog, so here 'tis.

I had a little incident Sunday night. I was cutting some fabric for a quilt for my soon-to-be-born nephew, and I got a little tired and careless. I was using one of those cutters that looks like a pizza slicer. On my last piece, I wasn't paying enough attention, and I cut the tip of my left middle finger off. Yes, I said off. It is a very weird experience seeing a piece of your finger flying across the room. Thankfully, your body just sort of takes over, so you don't really have to think. And you don't really feel pain. Though I did think for a split second that maybe my finger would be ok if I could just get the blood to stop. But then I noticed that the blood was kind of squirting everywhere. I looked at the piece of my finger on the floor, and I knew I would have to go to the hospital. Greasy hair, pj's, and all. --Yes, I actually took the time to be embarrassed that my t-shirt had a hole in it, and I would have to go to the hospital with no bra on...

After I rinsed my hand and put a washcloth over it to try to stop the blood, I tried to call Xon on the cell (he was getting groceries so I could make tacos), but it just kept ringing. I called Charles and Wendy, but they didn't answer. Called Xon again. No answer. Briefly thought to call my parents, but I knew they couldn't get here in time... I started to get pretty woozy, so I said a quick prayer that I could get someone on the phone before I passed out so someone would know I was bleeding.

Called Bly, was THRILLED when she actuallly answered, and very incoherently said I needed help. She immediately started on her way, but by then Xon had gotten home. He was talking to his dad on the cell. I met him in the driveway, and I said I had cut part of my finger off. He started screaming and ran in the house, put my finger in a bag with ice, and we went to the ER at St. Mary's. He later said I looked like a deer caught in headlights when I was standing in the driveway.

By the time we got in the car, my finger was throbbing pretty well. In the few minutes it took to get to the hospital, Xon called Bly to let her know she didn't have to come, helped me put on and tie my shoes, called Charles and Wendy and left a message, talked to my parents, and drove. --Xon, who can't multitask worth a lick. :-)

Since I'm typing this with one hand, I will have to tell you some more tomorrow. So I'll leave you with "TO BE CONTINUED..."

Blast from the Past

A college friend came to visit Tuesday night. His parents recently moved to Atlanta, so while he was visiting them, he scooted on over to Athens to see us. We haven't seen him in about three years, when he showed up at our apartment in Lexington and said the quickest goodbye I have ever heard. Before we knew it, he was out the door and on his way out of town. We were sad.

Bob Kamm is his name. People at Asbury used to say that Bob was Xon's son, because they look alike, and they always thought Xon looked older than what he was--especially with his beard. Bob is the only person who can rival Xon's lightening fast speech pattern and dramatic storytelling.

Xon and Bob drove around Athens while I finished up work, and then we ate at Wild Wing, one of my favorite restaurants. We talked about tv shows and movies and where we want to end up in life. Bob took us back to our car, and then he was gone. Again.

We hope to see him again at Christmas when he's in Atlanta. And his sister will be at UGA next year, so Xon is hoping she'll take one of his classes.

Here are some pictures of the fellas. You can see they're involved in a very serious debate in one. ;-)