E.R.

Our plans for the day were pretty simple. Go to the Love and Logic parenting class at church then probably eat lunch at Ryan's favorite Mexican fast food place, I can never remember its name they all seem the same to me, Chipotle, Q'doba, Baja Fresh...

Since class wasn't until noon I had the whole morning ahead of me. On top of my list of things to do was clean. You would never know by looking at my house that I'm always cleaning the kitchen or picking up toys or vacuuming. No sooner are all counter tops clean and all dishes washed and taken care then crumbs start popping up on the counters and dishes jump out of the cupboards and throw themselves around the kitchen. Sneaky dishes. Then of course there are toys that mysteriously end up in the kitchen behind the trash can. It's almost like a toddler stands at the gate barring him from entry and throws toys over and watches them roll to the far corners.

So there I am in the kitchen cleaning and cleaning some more. Ryan made delicious smoothies last night and that meant there was a blender to clean. The base was difficult to loose from the pitcher and after much effort it finally gave. I lifted the pitcher from the motor/base to remove the blade and rubber gasket. The blade slipped from my hands and I instinctively grabbed it.

*&*#(*!!!

Not my finest moment. I have only my cat like reflexes to blame for my stab wound. The blade went in on my right hand just below my pinkie finger on the side. What really surprised me was that it didn't really hurt. I guess its true what they say about sharp knives.

After inspecting my hand and noting that the wound kind of looked like a coin pouch I told Ryan that we would need to go to the emergency room as it was going to require stitches. If it wasn't so darn deep I would have been happy to just put some butterfly bandages on it and call it good. Well, that and I plunged my hand in the dish water and thought it might be good to have the wound irrigated since I don't think dish water with food bits is good for the inside of a wound.

My instincts steered me wrong this morning. Let the blade fall on the ground. Put owie under fresh running water.

Ryan bandaged me up and I kept adding layers as needed all the while getting dressed to go to the hospital. A half an hour later we were all dressed and ready to go. Ten minutes later we were parked and realized we were clear on the wrong side of the hospital from the ER.

I checked myself in and ask where we can go to get some food because I know they aren't going to see me right away. The grumpy receptionist tells me I can't eat because they may want to run some tests on me and that I need to talk to the nurse first. Ryan and Gavin go off to eat delicious food and I starve because they are going to give me life altering stitches. I forgot that we should have eaten first (or not mention food and just ate anyway). I kept putting off getting admitted to the hospital when I gave birth to Gavin because I knew they wouldn't let me eat so we came and went from the hospital until I was in pain and actually wanted to stay (and get an epidural).

Ryan brought me back a sandwich. I ask Ms. Grumpypants if I can eat since I saw the nurse already. "You most certainly may not!" I so wanted to slap Miss Congeniality. Instead I say, "Fine," like a sullen teenager. I should have told her a simple no would have sufficed and that she could lose the attitude. I was the one with the stab wound in my hand I was much more pleasant than she was.

I asked the triage nurse how long before I would be seen. She said with a laceration I have to be treated within 6 hours. Me: "Six hours!" Nurse: "You have to be treated within 6 hours of the laceration. It won't take that long." That was her way of saying it was going to take between 0-5 hours. She asked me when I hurt myself so I said, "Forty min... I mean 5 hours ago. Ha ha ha." I hope she appreciates the laughter I brought to that miserable little place.

It wasn't that miserable there except for the crazy lady. Let me tell ya something about myself. My tolerance for crazy hovers somewhere around nil. Correction. I can handle senile 'crazy', old people crazy but I don't do well with paranoid crazy. Having worked in geriatric (old people) care for a number of years as everything from a housekeeper to a nurse I understand the many ways the craziness manifests. One year I filled in for the housekeeper at the assisted living facility where I worked as an aide. I was in room # 208 or #308, I remember the woman's face but can't remember her name. She came back to her room after lunch and there I was cleaning her room. She grabbed a pairing knife and said, "Who are you?!" I said, "It's me April, I'm the housekeeper."

"Housekeeper the devil! I'm the housekeeper!"

I put my hands up and said, "OK" and I inched my way past her and left her room a disheveled mess. I told the administrator a certain someone had a knife that needed to be confiscated.

Another time a dear woman came down while I was working graveyard as a nurse's aide. "Help! A little boy fell down the well!" Me: "?" Senior: "Hurry! He fell down the well." Me: "OK. Let's go see what we can do."

We get in the elevator and go up to her room. Once inside she leads me to the well. Her t.v. It was off and the screen was black. I showed her that the well was a tv. I tapped on the glass and she kind of snapped out of it. "Oh." I went back to my station and not fifteen minutes later she was back as the boy was back in the well. This time I turned the tv on. She must have fallen asleep after that because there were no more boys in wells.

My favorite crazy episode really wasn't at all crazy because the lady knew her hallucinations weren't real; they were a side effect of her medicine. She would laugh hysterically and describe what she was seeing and I would hold my hand up and poke "them" and she would laugh even harder. Oh, I miss her. She had the most infectious laugh.

My least favorite crazy was the lady who thought we were recording her every move and were broadcasting for the whole world to see, kind of like the Truman Show. We were "them" and "they" two things you do not want to be. There is no reasoning with someone who thinks you are one of them.

Back to the crazy lady in the ER. She wasn't paranoid, not that I could tell but she was plenty annoying. Maybe a bit of a hypochondriac. "I need oxygen. Help. I need oxygen." Nurse: "The doctor worked up your heart and determined you don't need oxygen. Your ride is going to be here any minute."
Crazy lady: "I have rights you know. I need oxygen. What if I have a heart attack? What are you guys going to do?"
(I'm thinking if you have a heart attack you couldn't be in a better place, lady).
Crazy lady: "I need to call my cousin Stephanie; she's a lawyer. I don't have her phone number with me. I need to call 411. Will someone help me call my cousin Stephanie? Help. I have rights you know. Her number is long distance. Stephanie! Stephanie! Help me!"

They finally call my name after hanging out over 2 hours. A nurse sets me up in a bed and pulls the curtain. She asks a few questions and says the doctor will be in a minute to see me. Or 30 or 40 minutes. In comes Mr. Doctor he has more questions for me. He looks at wound and says he will numb it up so a tech can clean it out. Dr. shoots fire, a.k.a., lidocaine in my hand. I don't think they cut it with sodium bicarb to lessen the sting. It hurt. More than the actual stab wound.

30 minutes later Kevin comes in and shoots saline in to the wound three times. Judging by the splashing of saline and I'm sure blood that hit my face I am pretty confident that any dirty dishwater and food bits were removed from my hand.

Kevin leaves and says doctor will be back to stitch me up. Sure. After about an hour I parted the curtain and asked someone in scrubs behind a desk if I could eat something. I held up my hand and said, "I'm just getting stitches." The lady in scrubs said, "Well... are you feeling nauseous or weak?" I wanted to say, "Yes, from hunger," but thought a simple "No" would result in me putting food in the gaping grumbling hole known as my stomach. "I suppose you can have some crackers," she conceded. I pointed to my bag and said, "I have a sandwich." She gave me an opening and I took off with it.

Then out of the corner of my eye I see some dude stand up. It's Dr. Twiddling-His-Thumbs. "Let's just get you stitched up." I tried really hard, and I succeeded, in not glaring at him. Why was he just sitting there? Don't tell me he was charting because they were using all electronic charts. Today was their first day of exclusive electronic charting.

I told the Dr. that would be nice. I lay down and I ask him to poke my hand first to make sure it was still numb (my subtle way of saying it has been ages since you numbed me up). "Sure. But the medicine I gave you lasts for 4 hours." Then he proceeds to shove the needle in my skin. "Ooh, that stings a bit."

Doctor: "You shouldn't feel anything."

Me (to myself): "Well, Jackass. I just told you that I felt something and it wasn't altogether pleasant."

Doctor then plunges the needle back into my skin. "That stings, too."

Doctor: "Hmphf." Then he plunges the needle back into my skin and this time I gasp and my left leg goes shooting up in the air.

Dr. Jackass: "Clearly you felt that. Oh well. That was the last one. Sorry."

This time I didn't hide the disdain in my eyes. I was a touch angry. He gave some directions which I took with a scowl and he left and told me the tech would be back in to clean me up. He left and I went to my purse and inhaled my sandwich with one hand careful to keep the other bloody mess away from the food. Then when I was done with my sandwich I read all of the cards on the supply cart that list the doctor's preferences for sutures, their glove sizes and when I was done with that I inspected the stuff left on my bed that they used to treat me. I pulled back a towel and what did I find? They syringe with lidocaine buried - Dr. J carelessly left it there where it could have ended up in a laundry and someone could have been poked (and numbed with all of the medicine left in it).

Someone walked by my curtained space and I poked my head out. "I'll just wash my hand and leave." That made her very uncomfortable. Too bad. I was done. D-O-N-E. They sent in an RN to finish me up - can't have a woman with some stitches leaving before being properly discharged. And I don't think I want to make an appointment to have my stitches taken out. I think I can take them out just fine at home - it won't be the first time.