2018 Sunday — Stitches

I was walking from our bedroom to the bathroom — getting ready to call it a day and get some shut-eye — the hallway is somewhat dark and I had folded the bedspread and was carrying it to set it in the bathtub, which is where I keep it at night (in this teeny-tiny house). All of a sudden, I was tripping, stumbling, and falling rather face first when my right-hand smacked the bathroom’s door-jam. I had tripped over our black dog Max. Instantly my hand felt like it had been hit with the full force of a sledgehammer.

Immediately blood was pouring from a wound on my hand, I was screaming and crying in pain, and I realized I was in the house alone. I didn’t realize that Mr. Fun had stepped outside to water the newly poured driveway cement (keeping it wet is part of the curing process). A pool of blood was forming on the floor beneath me and the front of my Levi’s where covered in blood.

Then Mr. Fun opened the front door and both of us were hysterical (he’s really not good, helpful, or comforting in awful moments like this). I had already found a roll of paper towels and wrapped my hand; blood was oozing through the thick wad of paper. I knew I needed to get to the hospital, to the ER. We put dogs in their crates, secured windows, and I made sure I had my Kaiser medical card and driver’s license for I.D.. We are a 15 minute drive from the Riverside Kaiser Medical facility.

There was no one other than hospital personnel in ER when we arrived. The clerk at the front desk quickly took my info and then my vitals, and escorted me to a private room. A nurse and a doctor were there in a few short moments pouring purified water over the wound to clean it to inspect the damage and access what needed to be done to repair it. The wound was deep but not lengthy.

The purified water had a piercing sting and the injection of numbing medicine had a bitter bite, but an almost instant numb.

I hadn’t eaten dinner because we’d had a rather big lunch, but now at midnight, I was feeling sick to my stomach and light headed from viewing all the blood.

Three stitches and a hand x-ray and we were released for our journey home.

Finding a glow-in-the-dark collar for Max is now on our agenda. Oh yeah, the stitches should be removed in 8 to 10 days. This was not my favorite way to end our Sunday.

In Southern California,
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol