It was Christmas Day, and we’d given my mother in law a set of knives. My husband was taking them out of the packaging so we could use them while preparing Christmas dinner. He manages to badly cut four fingers on the palm side of his left hand.
So, once turkey carving time rolled around, he was unable to hold the turkey steady because it was hurting his cut hand, so turkey carving fell to me. It was my first time carving a turkey, and I did really well! I almost finished, I was just removing the breast we were not going to eat, when my hand slipped and the knife sank into the bottom of my thumb. I managed to back away quickly enough to avoid drenching the turkey in blood, of which there was a LOT.
So we headed to the ER. I got six stitches, one way down in the fascia, five in the skin, plus a tetanus shot.
All went well for a little over a week, it seemed to be healing fine, no infection. My doctor told me I should start leaving it uncovered sometimes. So, I made the mistake of cleaning my bedroom, bathroom, and office without putting a bandage on first (basically, I meant to cover it, but I forgot, then got so absorbed in the cleaning, I was nearly done when I finally remembered). Something nasty got in there, and it swelled way up. I started applying bacitracin and keeping it covered all the time again.
That was apparently mistake number two. A couple days later, the whole area was nearly purple and leaking pus. It was the weekend, though, so on Monday I called up my doctor and said, “say, I think my hand is infected.” I went in that day, she agreed, took out my stitches, and gave me some Keflex. Yay nausea and other unpleasant gastrointestinal side effects! But my hand is looking much better. Still hurts like a bitch, though.