Casualties

I lopped off the tip of my thumb the other day. Thursday. It was a week.

No, I didn’t take off a big ol’ steak of flesh, like the kid did with that deli meat slicer last year, or have a green foam/fungus bandage applied by the finger authorities to stimulate new growth to bring it back to something once again resembling a finger.

No, it wasn’t as bad as when my ex-husband shoved his pointer finger tip-first into the table saw and hamburgerized it clear down to the bone about thirteen seconds after we were married.

And what I did Thursday was nothing like when my Grandpa Roger’s best friend Chubby’s daughter Suzie’s boyfriend Tom?Greg?Rick?Ken? pinched the entirety of his middle finger right off–pop!–in the wood splitter out in the wood shed that time when I was seven. I can’t remember that guy’s name, but I have a vivid image of his finger entering the cabin without him and being plunged into the depths of a hastily prepared bag of ice, all while I sat there on the kitchen stool and gaped.

No, it wasn’t like any of those, loppings one could take seriously, losses requiring the finger authorities. (I know you’re wondering if RobSamJeffTim kept that finger. Sadly, I don’t remember. I know they tried to reattach it. Maybe it took? Maybe it didn’t? Lost to the annals of history, I guess. Besides, he wasn’t around for long after that Welcome to the Family event.) No, this was your more run of the mill slip of the knife, a delicate removal of enough flesh that you’ll likely never have a round finger again, but nothing too traumatizing. Really, I shouldn’t whine.

But, you know, you do what you do best, and I’ll do the same.

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Let’s populate this one with completely unrelated photos from my morning walk from here on out. That seems wise.

Like I said, it was a week…

You see, the Man got sick last last weekend, prompting him to test for the dreaded Rona, for as you know, the Man doesn’t really get sick. Results: Negativo… A nice old fashioned cold. The Me held off for almost a whole entire week, which is something, for if the Man is sick, you bet your bottom dollar I am sicker. But I held out. Because I am Woman. 

Then last Friday comes, a week into his ordeal, and I’m driving along, and there is an unsettling stirring in the musculature of the core, wild and wooly and making no sense, possibly a twisting of the spleen. Inexplicable, you know? I honestly thought I caught the scent of COVID there wranklin’ in m’kidneys. But I had performed some new death-defying yoga maneuvers that morning and my period was days late and in more than a bit of a mood about it and if we were being honest, I was probably finally succumbing to the Man’s cold. Likely what we had here was a triple-threat situation masquerading as a cramping of the spleen. Sensible, really.

Lo and behold, after that Friday of mysterious torque and torture, Saturday morning I awoke sick. The mighty had fallen. 

So Saturday I was sick.
Sunday (m’birthday 🥳) I was miserable.
Monday, same.
And Tuesday, still awful.

And then on Tuesday night the Man says, “Maybe you should test?”

And I do,
and let me tell you,
the kidneys don’t lie. 🤦🏼‍♀️

That husband of mine gave me COVID for my birthday,
if you can believe it. 
(The damned tests do lie.)

Wednesday is more of the same.
And Thursday I am feeling so good that I am making my own salad, complete with a little finely sliced flesh for garnish.
Gah. 
And here we are.

Usually, in my experience at least, when the knife goes rogue you filet things pretty good but you leave a little point of attachment, you know? The flip-lid of the finger? You close the hinge as quickly as you can in an effort to deny what happened, and you tape that bad boy shut. Sure, it will heal weird and dry up at the edges and act as a nerve-laden hang-nail for a while once the band-aid comes off, but overall, your flip-lid does the trick.

But what when you slice clean through? 

In my case it wasn’t quite clean through, but the single-file row of cells that remained, those last remaining hangers-on, were clearly not going to cut it as a hinge, so before the blood even got the message to start flowing, I cast the flap away among the pomegranate husk and orange peel in the nearby honey bucket and returned my attention to the crater that would surely be bleeding like a stick pig soon enough. 

Here’s the thing… that flip-lid we so take for granted is ph balanced and metabolically matched and otherwise in tune with your bod, man, and without it, without that half dead, half alive, still very much you patch’o’flesh to buffer things, there is much pain to be had. Not at first of course. Adrenaline steps up and numbs the works up for a second. At least until the blood receives the wire that their awaited escape route has finally opened up, the hatch is blown, let’s get outta this joint. Once the bloody hordes begin to rush the breach, the adrenaline goes soft and distracted. 

Things to know:

• Toilet paper stings like a SOB at this point, there across the vent of your surging volcano. It also releases a cloud of fine particulate that acts like contact cement in the presence of blood and saliva, and immediately creates an adhesive mess that you will regret. 
  • The blood flows even freer now that you’ve managed to insult your injury.
• Water is the substance of the devil, its ph not even remotely matching that of your uncapped thumb innards and creating approximately 46 times more acute pain. Prepare to scream.
• Saliva is surprisingly soothing, but taste buds are made of swords and lasers and cactus spines, so apply from a distance. Matter in general, excepting saliva, is of the same make-up as taste buds. 78x pain.
  • Also, is it safe to invite COVID directly into the bloodstream? No matter… we appear to have a one-way street currently.
    • In addition to questions of bloodborne COVID, this presents a tricky bandaging situation, as I’ve yet to meet a contact-free bandage. 

Bandage number one induces mild screaming and is soaked through within moments. As the  fearless bugger appears to be temporarily staunching the flow, we’ll leave it in place until things congeal a little. The throbbing begins.

Ten minutes in, certain that it is safe to change the dressing, screaming continues. The blood has indeed been stopped, but the miracle of the human body has already begun knitting the flesh into the very fabric of the non-stick band-aid that is now as much Me as Itself. Bringing the knife back out might have been preferable.

Recommence excessive flow of far-too-thin blood. Good Lord, where is the Vitamin K when you need it?

The second bandage, a new model, a band-aid that looks as though it might actually be non-stick, is applied directly over the toilet paper decoupage and shreds of faux-non-stick gauze/flesh of the first. The pain, thanks to this further insult, ratchets up in a more chronic fashion, and the remainder of the evening is a much less pleasant experience than it once was. Throbbing intensifies. Sleep will be elusive.

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That band-aid, a hideous shade of shifting bruise, is still in place now, three days later. I’ll consider its removal only once I can hang my hand at my side without a sense of imminent eruption and I am able to brush by the band-aid without whimpering, say in a week or two. Infection risk? Decisions have been made, people.

Showers are a delicate business. Water is the devil, and also threatens to weaken the band-aid’s staying power, and I need that boy to fight like he’s never fought before. Buttoning my pants is a delicate business. Sleeping is a delicate business. My god, have you ever had the pleasure of clasping a bra with one thumb and one nerve-bombed nub?

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The COVID? It’s OK. We’re recovering. Third time is the easiest so far, though it has screwed with my ability to safely wield a knife. The kidneys are still making themselves known, but are as we speak being mollified by a small arsenal of renal support supplements. All is well.

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Maybe don’t tell the kid with the wonky finger about this post. Or the ex-husband. Or TomDickHarryJuaquin.
Really anyone who’s actually got a reason to whine. 😬

If ya’ need me, I’ll be chopping up my dinner fixins using my left index finger as an opposable thumb to hold down the victims. What could go wrong?
KJ