Clumsy oaf! Now look what you've done!

Ow ow ow! Last night I was slicing up stuff for my supper salad. :slight_smile:

Then suddenly I was slicing the top of my left thumb half off. OW! Blood is flying. :eek:

I ran the tap over it. It kept bleeding. I wadded a paper towel over it. It kept bleeding. I cursed at it. It kept bleeding. :frowning:

I lurched upstairs, washed my hands, dabbed Bacitracin onto the wound, wiped the blood spatters out of the sink with a reddening wad of paper towel over the thumb, wrapped the biggest Band-Aid I could find over it, and watched more blood seep out still. Yup, it’s not going to stop with home remedies. Time to go visit the friendly folks at the emergency room. And here I am, already in my nightgown and robe for a quiet evening of supper munching and TV watching. :mad:

More cursing my clumsy stupidity as I rip off the nightclothes, struggle one-and-a-half-handed into going-to-the-hospital clothes, and stomp back downstairs and into the car. I drive to the hospital with my paper-towel-wadded left thumb sticking up mournfully from the steering wheel. At the hospital, the Misfortune Gods decide to take pity on me – there’s an open spot on the first level of the parking garage! :smiley:

Once inside the hospital, things aren’t too bad. I get the intake done by the triage nurse reasonably quickly, have time for several pages of reading on my phone’s Kindle app back out in the waiting room, then get led off to an exam room where in decently short order a cheerful doctor helps me peel off the layers of protection I’d applied and examines the damaged appendage. By now it’s stopped actively bleeding and is contenting itself with the occasional ooze, so after he cleans it he decides not to stitch it. Instead, he applies several coatings of surgical glue. I’m departing, instruction sheet stuffed in my purse and thumb held carefully aside, in about two hours from arrival. :cool:

By now it’s too late to stop anywhere for something hot to eat (hey, it’s 9:00 p.m. on a Sunday out here in the sticks; the few sidewalks are already rolled up for the night) other than a lone McDonald’s, so I content myself when I get home with salty snacks and chocolate. I manage to find a gigantic Band-Aid, 3x4-inch, and get it folded over the thumb so that the fold sits just above the top of the digit while the bottom adheres below the first joint. Thumb armor! This makes life marginally more awkward than trying to remember Don’t Touch Anything With That Thing, but works better. After a few hours of quietly mindless enjoyment before the TV, it’s off to bed. :o

This morning, the damn thing is still prone to slight oozing if I happen to bump it on something but otherwise seems to be doing well. Looks awful, but I think I’ll live. I’m supposed to avoid getting the thumb wet, lest it undo the surgical glue, so for feeding the cats and then cleaning their litter boxes I pulled on a pair of examining gloves. Worked fine. I’ve currently got a little latex finger cot on over it – and yes, it does look silly, like I’m wearing the world’s smallest Trojan over it, but it’s less clumsy than going back to the mega-Band-Aid. :dubious:

And I’m still pissed at myself. Clumsy oaf! :smack:

you’ll have a scar to show people. that’s a plus.

But the story of how you got the scar is what counts.

On the other hand(that has all it’s fingers), ETF could star in Made-For-TV product commercials.

Something to look forward too! Yay!

Although it’s not as cool as a dueling scar. :stuck_out_tongue:

For Mainway Novelties? :eek:

What is it about left (or, more specifically, non-dominant hand) thumbs?

You didn’t cut deep enough to hit the nerve, did you?

When I was younger (much) and more foolish (a little), I managed to bury a straight-edge razor almost bone-deep into the inside half of my left thumb, right about where the nailbed starts. (Let’s just say, there’s a really good reason why they always advise you to cut away from yourself, rather than straight at your thumb. :smack:)

Didn’t go to the ER, but probably should have.

It eventually healed with a hella scar. And the nerve I cut means I don’t have much touch sensitivity along the inner half of my thumb tip.

Coulda been worse, I guess. The bone did stop the blade.

Since you’re invoking SNL:This.

:smiley: Not quite that bad!

No pics?

They’re clumsier?

No, thank goodness.

That’s the spirit! :stuck_out_tongue:

You are one sick puppy. And anyway, I couldn’t get the lens cap off.

All thumbs you are!
actually tho, right now… :smack:

I feel your pain. Dec 30 I was on vacation, happily slicing fabric for a wall hanging with my trusty rotary cutter. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41jrLuR1ODL._SY300_.jpg

It jumped the ruler and cut through the top of the end section of my left thumb at an angle. Seven stitches. Three weeks later it is pretty well healed but still numb over the cut. Nice smile shape to match the other seven stitches’ worth of smile shape on my right palm (broken bottle when I was seven).

I have purchased a protective glove for any future rotary cutting! :smack:

Surgical glue is just any kind of cyanoacrylate. So, the regular cheap kind of instant superglue you buy in single use packages. When I get a deep cut I usually just apply superglue. Saves a trip to the ER.

At least you guys were using Impressive Cutting Equipment.

A week and a half ago, I was lying in bed, on my back in the dark, reading The Straight Dope on my iPhone. Yes, the phone with the cracked front glass and edges.

Then I dropped my phone. Directly downwards, onto my face. It landed cornerwise right on the bridge of my nose, a little below where the bridge of my glasses goes across.

It must have hit with the cracked part of the glass edge, because there was a short sharp pain. I picked the phone up, grumbling, and went to continue reading, but reached up to rub where the phone fell. Wait a minute. That didn’t feel right.

I turned on the light. There was blood on my finger. I was bleeding! I go into the bathroom and look. Yup, the phone had made a small slice on the bridge of my nose.

I wash and clean it, and it stops bleeding. For the next couple of days, I have a clot on my nose, but then it falls away.

I now have a scar on the bridge of my nose.

I’ll just tell people I’m a veteran of the IT wars.

Yep, there are some scars it’s just too embarrassing to relate the getting of. Like the one on the bridge of MY nose…

OP, did you curse, shake your hand, and bleed on the ceiling? That’s always fun.

Does a putty knife count? I was scraping off old wall-paper and dropped the knife. I didn’t realized I’d sliced my foot until I noticed I was sticking to the wall paper and the foot stool. Forty years later I still have the scare.

No, I did not learn my lesson. I still do everything but carpentry barefoot.

Obviously the scare was not large enough. :slight_smile:

I envy you all: definitive cuts of character!
Me? I just have a new kitten. Ever whirlwind your arms through a pricker bush? Its a little like that…

When I was a kid, I rode my bike downhill into a hawthorn tree with all it’s 2-cm spiky thorns… That’s gotta be close.