Seventeen Stitches to the Sunshine State

At around 11:30 AM on Saturday morning, about 6 hours before I needed to be at the airport to catch a plane for a much needed week vacation in the Florida sun, I was washing dishes in the sink. This particular morning I was washing a rather large, glass salad bowl. As I turned the glass bowl over to wipe it dry, it slipped and fell into the drying rack, shattering into many large and small pieces. One such piece sliced directly into the palm of my left hand. As soon as I felt the sharp, stinging burn of the cut and saw the gaping wound in my left hand, I knew I was in trouble and immediately went to "The Bad Place." I grabbed paper towels and applied pressure without investigating it much further and immediately called for help. As I waited for my father and husband to come pick me up, I tried to distract myself from the pain by catching up on my fellow RA bloggers, just hoping that I wouldn't pass out alone in my apartment. 

An hour later I had arrived at the ER, was checked in and was waiting for the Physician Assistant to examine my injured hand. Every nurse and technician who entered, greeted me by saying "I heard you did a good job on your hand." Fortunately, like most things in life, it could have been a lot worse! Apparently, if you have to slice your hand, I picked the best spot to do it. I missed any arteries or tendons and was still able to move and feel all my fingers. Seventeen stitches and 10cc of lidocaine later, I was stitched up and discharged. With amazingly 3 hours to go before our plane for Florida departed.

My hand is by no means healed. The cut wraps around from the side of my hand to the bottom corner of my palm. It is black and blue all over and numb around the wound. Currently it looks like a shark took a bite out of my hand and that may be the story I tell to my forever curious pediatric patients when I can return to work. However, I was still able to make my flight to Florida and lying on a beach is nice place to build skin cells!