if only...

this sad story begins with a series of "if onlys..." (and by the way, if you get sick when hearing about gory things, then don't read this)

if only I had not been in such a hurry...if only I had used the pre-chopped lettuce...if only we had ordered take-out...if only I had used proper knife skills as I always do, I wouldn't have had to go to the ER on Sunday night.

the story begins around 7 pm on Sunday night when we had the "ooh, take-out is so tempting" conversation. but we decided that since I had already made the tomato sauce and bought everything for dinner, I'd cook.

so you may have guessed the story by now (or heard about it).... I accidentally sliced off part of my finger on Sunday night while cooking. and I ALWAYS curl my fingers up to get them out of the way, like I've watched for hours and hours on end on the food network. I started screaming and screaming and screaming and Jeff ran in (I actually saw a little bit of finger on the cutting board). he grabbed my arm and took me into the bathroom and realized there wasn't anything he could do really. he was holding my arm up in the air but I wouldn't really let him put any pressure on it to stop the bleeding because it hurt so much.

he called his parents and said "she chopped off part of her finger" and I screamed even more. they said "call 911!" which he did. once those calls were finished we sat down and I started to calm down a bit because the blood was no longer pouring down my arm. but then I looked up and Jeff was completely white and there was sweat pouring down his face. he looked up at me and said "I think I'm going to pass out" and his head fell forward. I grab his head and screamed his name. he opened his eyes but he did not look well. after a minute or so, he said that he was alright and got up to change his clothes (we had just gotten back from working out, so on top of it all I was a smelly mess).

shortly thereafter, the police arrived and then the EMS. they reassured me that it wasn't so bad and that I would be fine, but I wouldn't let them run my finger under water. they re-wrapped in it gauze (it was still bleeding), and there wasn't much they could do so we went down to the ambulance and they drove us to the hospital. we arrived and they checked me in and assigned me to a bed. we plopped down and began to wait.

we actually didn't have to wait too long before a set of doctors (I think there were 2 residents and an attending or chief resident or something) came over. they asked me when I'd had my last tetanus shot (I didn't remember) and then took off the gauze. they realized there was really nothing for them to do either (I hadn't cut off "enough" for them to re-attach anything, and it wasn't a cut into my finger that needed to be stitched, I had just taken off most of the nail and part of the side -- I think, I still haven't looked yet). But they did need to stop the bleeding so they needed to go find some blood clotter gel thing or something. so then we waited for awhile more.

they came back and wrapped me up (the gel was incredibly painful because she essentially had to press it into my open wound). we then realized that we didn't have enough cash to take a cab home, so we were going to have to walk. which was unbelievably depressing for me, so I sent Jeff to go find an atm. we waited a bit more for the tetanus shot and then we were ready to head home. all in all it was about a 2 hour visit.

we arrived home, saw all the half cooked food on the stove and immediately ordered a pizza. I think Jeff threw out everything that was sitting out, including the cutting board. I vowed to never cook again.

if only I could really stick to that vow...