A Couple of Photos

For the medically curious and/or inclined, here are a couple pictures of my hand. I'm sure I'll end up with a nasty scar, since the ER doctor did a purposely quick job, assuming that the hand surgeon would just open it back up.

Wait And See...

Well, the surgeon pointed out that I didn't totally sever my tendon, or I wouldn't be moving my finger up. I was given the choice of having them open it up on Thursday to see if it really needed to be fixed, and maybe fixing, or just waiting to see if it completely breaks.

I chose the wait and see approach, which the doctor also seemed to favor. He said I could take off all of the dressings and should use my finger a lot. For some reason, I'm not overly inclined to try and break my tendon!

I assume what will happen now is that the tendon will rupture right after I arrive in CA next week and I'll have to cut my trip short...

Yep...my chisels are sharp.

So, with Kimberly gone for the week, I decided I had better get some entertainment center work done this morning. While prepping some doors to be painted, I was using a chisel to scrape off some glue seep-out. Despite knowing better, I had my left hand in the path of the chisel.

You can guess what happened next: the chisel slipped, but my left hand was close, so the chisel stopped slipping abruptly when it hit my knuckle bone, sans skin. Fortunately, I'm fairly cool under pressure, so after a few choice words, I got some paper towels on the cut and stopped the bleeding in short order.

Now...I'm at home alone with three kids (one sick) and need to go to the ER. Ummmm....

Ethan helped me splint and bandage my finger. He also helped man the phone and get Aidan (who took this opportunity to get the marshmallows out for a snack) dressed and Owen with his sweatshirt to fight his fever-induced shivers. The Moore family was gracious enough to watch the boys. As we pulled up, Ethan had his look of "something bad is about to happen" as Owen threw up in his lap. Again, yeah for the Moores.

The ER was thankfully quick. After an xray and some poking and prodding (after some numbing), the doctor decided that I had cleanly severed a tendon and that was beyond emergency room care, in fact, beyond Provena care entirely. So, he stuck in a couple of stitches and wrapped me up. The most painful part of the visit was the anti-biotic shot on my butt. I think I was in the hospital for less than 90 minutes! I'll be visiting a hand surgeon at Carle Monday morning to have everything reconnected.

The in-laws came and brought the boys home for me and spent the afternoon keeping us company. We will all look forward to Kimberly's return tomorrow.

Not surprisingly, I will not be flying to Sunnyvale this Monday!