It seems I’m constantly apologizing for not updating too much. I blame having multiple careers. 🙂
I also, for the past couple of weeks, blame the lad. You see, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have scalped my finger.
Let me explain.
Two weeks ago was a glorious Sunday. The sky was blue, the air was fair, and the children were in fine moods. After a hearty breakfast of pancakes, I sat down to cut some magnets with a pair of 9.5″ Titanium Nitride shears. (This was for a 4xGuard product experiment that, as insult to injury, ultimately failed.)
Anyhow, I was trying to cut these magnets while also trying to talk to my 4-year-old boy. He’s a sweet boy, and he was in a genial, talkative mood. Alas, because he is still young, it takes a bit of concentration to follow his chain of logic at times.
All this to say that at one point I looked up to listen to what he had to say while also shutting the shears with a snap.
It didn’t take but a heartbeat for my brain to register that not only had I effectively cut the magnet, but I had also caught the knuckle of my left ring finger in the blades. Another heartbeat, and I was out of my seat and at the kitchen sink, hoping to keep most of the gushing blood contained.
It gets worse.
Because, you see, as I squeezed down on the flap of flesh to try to slow the bleeding, I had one of those epiphany chains of thoughts: This is my ring finger, and I have on my wedding ring. This is a bad cut, and it is going to swell. This ring needs to come off.
I took a deep breath, turned on the water: bracingly cold. Then I plunged the wounded hand under the stream, gritted my teeth, grabbed the ring … and yanked it off.
Squirting ensued.
To my credit, I said nothing disturbing as my family looked on.
After that, I headed to the ER.
Here’s a picture of the wound from around that time, cleaned of blood:
Interestingly, the docs thought that I had so severely “de-vascularized” the knuckle that there was no point in stitching it. So they instead made me put the finger in a splint for a week.
After that, I got to take it off and start the process of painfully stretching and breaking and stretching the new skin. The docs were certain that the whole flap was going to be a goner.
Well, it looks like they were wrong:
This is my finger today. As you can see, the flap seems to be healing back into place. I’m like Wolverine, baby!
So glad to see your mutant powers saved you. 🙂
However, I’m wondering — it being Valentine’s Day and all — when will the ring be returning to the rehabilitated finger?
That’s actually a good question, Cathy. I’ve tried putting it back on a couple of times, but the pain is pretty bad. I’m suspecting it may be another week or so.
It’ll probably always be harder to get the ring on and off, though, as the healing knuckle is a bit more, um, lumpy than it was before.