Archive for the 'Are you bleeding?' Category

The exploding paper shredder

Published on Monday, October 26, 2009 in Are you bleeding?. 10 Comments Tags: , .

**I’ll preface this by saying that everyone is physically okay, and there was no damage to the house.**

Saturday started out innocently enough. I’d marked on my calendar that it was the local “Shred-a-thon,” which is where you can bring up to three bags of shreddable items to be shredded for free by the Police Department.

When I worked from home, I had massive amounts of confidential documents to shred. When they were a month old, they were to be destroyed. On a weekly basis, I shredded a pile. I did this every week. Along with that, I’d shred our own personal things.

When I quit my job, I didn’t have as much to shred, and I fell off the shredding wagon. Things would pile up, and I’d tackle them in a weekend and then repeat the next month.

Because the Shred-a-thon was coming up, I hadn’t shredded things in a while. I had one bag of things to take, and it wasn’t even a very big bag.

Saturday rolls around and my husband lets me sleep in. I jolt awake, look at the clock and bolt out of bed. I jump in the shower. I want to make it by the deadline!

As I finish my shower, I run into my office, and there are Daddy and Claire, shredding the documents. They’d tried to surprise me by having all of them done so I wouldn’t have to go! How sweet of them!

I go back to the bedroom to get ready, and that’s when I hear a large, terrible, crashing noise. I had no idea what had happened. My first thought was that something large had fallen over in my office, even though that’s not physically possible, since we have things tethered to the walls. To be honest, it sounded like an explosion, but I know that’s not possible either.

I run to the office. As I get to the door, I see Claire running toward me, out of the smoke filled room. There are bits of shredded papers wafting through the air, and they’re on fire! My husband is standing in a cloud of smoke, trying to put out the flames in the paper shredder bin. I grab Claire and pull her out of the room. I run back, ready to run to the garage for the fire extinguisher, as I scream to him to see if he’s been hurt.

He says he’s okay, and in a flash, he’s outside with the shredder.  He yells to me that he got the fire out.

Would I have had time to get down two flights of stairs to get to the garage and back up with the fire extinguisher had this been a more massive fire? Maybe, but probably not. Do we have a fire extinguisher under the kitchen sink LIKE WE’VE MEANT TO HAVE FOR EIGHT YEARS? Uh, no.

Guess what’s on our To Do List now?

After he has the paper shredder outside smoldering on the flagstone patio, away from the house and any other combustible materials, he comes back in. I do a medical evaluation. A large portion of hair has been singed off his right arm, and his baja sleeve has been melted. He runs his hand under cold water while I get the aloe.

I do another inspection of my office to be doubly-sure that no burning pieces are left anywhere, and I open the windows and close the door in hopes of airing it out.

Claire had been sitting right next to the shredder when the explosion happened. The force of the blast and the excitement it caused made her jump off the chair and land across the room. She’s physically okay, and she hasn’t had any nightmares yet. She did, however, spend the rest of Saturday asking if other things will blow up.

We are so lucky. Daddy wasn’t severely hurt. His hands never blistered, and he’ll live without arm-hair. Claire wasn’t injured, even though she was sitting right next to the blast. The explosion didn’t catch anything else on fire.

So, what happened?

Well, we aren’t exactly sure, but these are the turn of events as we know them. The shredder isn’t a new shredder. It has been known to get hot, but it has a safety turn-off. When it’s too hot, it turns itself off, immediately, and usually in the middle of a paper. It’s an annoying feature, and one we take for granted, but it’s always worked in the past. My husband finally remembered to lubricate the mechanism. It’s needed it for a while, and he’d done that earlier in the shredding session. There’s always a lot of paper-dust created when we shred documents. This isn’t abnormal, but goes into the equation.

For whatever reason, something sparked and it caught the paper-dust on fire, which then exploded. Paper-dust burns incredibly fast, which is good and bad. It’s good in that it was over quickly, and bad in that it happened without notice and with an amazing amount of force.

Unfortunately, this happened just as my husband was feeding a paper into the machine, which put his hand and arm a little too close for comfort.

For the record, shredders have always made me nervous, but I always thought the danger lurked in being sucked in by your tie or your hair or a necklace. It never occurred to me that the paper dust could explode, but it makes perfect sense.

So, after 8+ years in this house, we’ve finally had our first explosion. It’s nice to finally check that off the list so that we can get on to more calming matters. October is also Fire Safety Month, so once again, Irony tries to step up and make us laugh as the smoke clears.

We can laugh about this now. We can joke about the fact that because I announced this on Twitter, I almost ended up on the local news station. We can joke about the fact that singed arm-hair isn’t very exciting, but had he lost his eyebrows, it may be more newsworthy.

I laugh about it now, because if I think too hard about it, I’ll start shaking again. I laugh about it now, because if I think about it too hard, the tears will come to my eyes again.

It’s amazing how tiny that line between tragedy and comedy is, and we are so lucky.

So, I’m in the market for a new paper-shredder. You’ll know when I get one, because you’ll hear me using it. I’ll be the one out in the middle of my driveway with that thing plugged into an extension cord. I’ll be the one holding the fire extinguisher.

Obstacles

Published on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 in 30 Day Shred and Are you bleeding?. 3 Comments Tags: .

All the way to my doctor’s appointment yesterday, I wondered if I’d missed a memo.

I was leaving straight from Claire’s preschool, which puts me a little closer to the highway.  (I got the earliest possible appointment, and should have enough time to make it.)  Normally, I avoid a certain highway going certain directions at certain times of day, and as I looked at my car clock-radio, I could hear my husband’s voice chiding me.

“I can’t believe you don’t take the highway. It’s so much faster, and more direct!” he says, albeit in my head.

“Unless you’re stuck in gridlock,” I counter. “Who cares if it’s a straight line if you’re not moving, or if you’re trying to avoid playing bumper-cars with the other crazies?”

“You’re just not used to driving in rush-hour traffic anymore,” he says. “It’s not like this is abnormal.”

“Exactly. I don’t drive in rush-hour anymore. Why should I if I don’t have to?” I ask.

Even though this was a conversation in my head, I decided to let him win. How bad could it be? It’s almost 9am…it should be fine. If it is truly faster (the jury is still out on that one), I need every extra minute I can get. I hate being rushed, but there was no way to avoid this. I was just glad they had an appointment that matched Claire’s preschool schedule.

I headed toward the highway.  As I was taking the entrance ramp, I saw the parking lot before me. It’s not even moving! Great.

Luckily enough, I’d decided to take this entrance ramp, because there’s an escape route of sorts onto a side street. So, I took it.

No highway for me today!

Since I was already over in this area, I decided to take the ninja route which parallels the highway, just to see how far down the clog was. The traffic was backed up as far as I could see.

So, I ended up cutting across town and took the way I would normally go. This is the way my husband hates to take. It’s a little farther to drive (maybe…again, this hasn’t been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt), but almost always has no delays. Of course, with all my course-corrections, I’m a little behind schedule.

As I’m getting to the street I need, I see a construction sign warning me that such-n-such road is closed up ahead and that alternate routes are advised. Could I remember the name of that street where I make my turn?

No. I don’t need to know the name…I know where it is. It doesn’t matter anyway, because it’s either the street I need or it isn’t. Any alternate routes would have to be on past the construction. I mean, if it was actually the street I needed, isn’t that sign in the wrong place? It’s too late to turn back if it’s the street they’re talking about.

Sure enough, the road I’m on is down to one-lane with a flagger.  The road I normally take is the one under construction and completely closed.

Sweet!

After waiting my turn, driving through the construction zone and making up an even more creative route, I arrived at the hospital with few minutes to spare. As I’m walking to the building, I notice that the entrance I normally use is barricaded.

What is going on!? Am I missing something??

A parking lot of a highway, a construction delay, a closed road, and a barricaded entrance. “We tried to stop her at every turn, but she just kept going,” I could hear the gods whispering amongst themselves.

I found another way to get to the office I needed and arrived before my appointment. Luckily, I’d filled all the “new patient” paperwork out at home, so I wasn’t rushed.

So, how did the appointment turn out? What’s the verdict on my knee?

The good news: I really like my doctor, and I’m really glad I got to meet him. I was able to get my flu shot while I was there, so there is no added co-payment or expense to do that.

The I-suppose-it’s-good-news: The way my knee feels is normal for the type of injury I have.

The I’m-really-trying-to-spin-this-in-a-positive-way-but-it’s-kinda-bad-news: I have a “severely bruised bone,” and it’s causing trouble where the tendons attach. There isn’t anything they can do for my knee. It could take 6-months for it to heal. There isn’t anything I can take for the pain. There isn’t anything I should have done differently. (Besides going back in time and not falling, which can’t be remedied now…) I just have to avoid doing things that make it hurt.

And, after avoiding so many obstacles on the way to the doctor’s office…what’s a few more?

Get down on your knees…or not.

Published on Monday, September 28, 2009 in 30 Day Shred and Are you bleeding?. 4 Comments Tags: .

So, I broke down and made an appointment for my knee.

I think it’s officially been upgraded from “skinned knee fiasco” to more of a real “knee injury.”

As you may remember, I fell. I wasn’t doing anything exciting; I just fell.

That was three weeks ago.

Now, for the record, I tried to learn to be patient once, but it took way too long so I gave it up.  Maybe I’m not the best judge of how long something is supposed to take.  Still…three weeks seems a bit excessive, no?  It has physically healed on the outside.  The scab has come off.  It’s not infected (that I can tell).  But, I still can’t put any direct pressure on it.

Whenever I talk about my knee, it’s confusing and I need to whip out the whiteboard and draw diagrams.  If I say, “I can’t put any pressure on it,” that implies that I can’t walk on it.  That’s not true.  I can.  Going up and down stairs still hurts a little, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  I can’t get on my knees without there being excruciating pain.

This puts a crimp in a lot of what I do during the day.

(Insert horribly inappropriate jokes here…)  ;)

I’m talking about buckling and unbuckling Claire’s car seat, helping Claire put away toys, and giving Claire a bath.

In fact, you’d be surprised at how much I use my knee.

So, it’s been three weeks.  That’s too long.  Tomorrow, I get to meet our new doctor and have him tell me that there’s nothing wrong with it.

I hope.

Because “I have a knee injury” doesn’t make me sound like such a dork.

Published on Monday, September 14, 2009 in 30 Day Shred and Are you bleeding?. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

A week ago Sunday, we took a little road trip to a city north of us. We have out-of-state friends who were going to be in that area with their baby girl while visiting some relatives, and we’d been invited to go spend lunch and the afternoon with them.

It was great to see them!

After lunch, the six of us headed out to explore the town on foot. While on the way to our next destination, Claire tripped and fell, skinning both knees. If you’ve spent any time at all around a preschooler, you know that this is par for the course. I had some Hello Kitty™ Band-aids in my purse, and once those were applied, Claire was good as new.

We had a great visit, and when it was time to say our good-byes, they commented about Claire’s skinned knees, hoping she felt better. In true form, she’d already forgotten about them. Then, we started talking about how if one of us skinned our knee, it would be terrible. “I’d have to take the day off work!” one of our friends joked. We all agreed.

None of us heard the ominous music playing in the background.

We parted ways, and we started walking back to our car. It was a great day; the new scenery of a different town was interesting. It was flat. Very flat. By this time, Claire was riding in the umbrella stroller, with Daddy pushing her toward our car. We could see it! There it is…right there up ahead.

All of a sudden, I fell. I don’t even know what happened. My right ankle twisted when I tripped on a clod of air, and I fell. Hard. Right on my left knee. The mangled mess was disturbing to say the least. Blood was dripping down my leg.  The palms of my hands were all bruised and scraped.  I was trying not to panic. I got up, took three steps and fell again. On the same knee.

To my husband’s credit, he responded appropriately. It’s taken him over 10 years to learn that the first response is never supposed to be, “What the blankety-blank happened!?” The first response is always supposed to be “Are you okay!?”

But, I wasn’t. I wasn’t okay. I don’t know why I fell. All of the obvious indicators didn’t fit. I hadn’t been drinking. I was wearing heeled sandals, but I’ve worn them a million times. The sidewalk wasn’t uneven. There weren’t any massive cracks. But, it was what it was, and I needed our first aid kit.

I hobbled to the car, trying really hard not to sob.  It seemed miles away, but in reality was just a couple blocks. The tears were streaming down my face, and Claire was a little freaked out. Daddy got Claire strapped into her car seat, and he got the first aid kit that I carry with me everywhere. (If I don’t have it in my purse, it’s in the trunk of my car.) Luckily, we had a Band-Aid big enough.  Barely.  The skinned area just below my knee was huge and gruesome.

After I got home, I cleaned it thoroughly and then freaked out some more at the swelling. The area was all swollen and gross. I bandaged it again and then sat with it iced and elevated.

It’s been a week, and I’m happy to report that it’s healing, but it’s still very painful. The location of it is such that I have to move it when I walk. That movement makes the healing process very painful and slow.

I’ve had to alter how I do some things, and I can’t wait to walk again without pain and a limp. I realize I’m very lucky in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t like the last time I fell. I am still mobile. I still have the use of all my limbs.

Edited to add: Needless to say, my newest challenge has been put on hold indefinitely. :(

I do, however, need to come up with a better story, because, “I have a skinned knee” just sounds silly and doesn’t quite represent the reality of the situation.

Or maybe it does, and I’m just not as tough as most 3-yr olds. :)

The monkeys’ doctor is right!

Published on Friday, August 7, 2009 in Are you bleeding?, Claire and Parenting 101. 6 Comments Tags: .

It’s Thursday afternoon. I’m sitting in my office, and Claire is in her room.

All of a sudden, I hear the unmistakable KUH-BLOOM-BAH-DUM sound of someone tumbling off the bed.

You know that sound.

I just knew she’d fallen off the bed, and from the proximity of the sound, it was off the end of her bed. At least, I was hoping it wasn’t over her rail. Either way, the fall isn’t too far…but still. It’s not a sound you like to hear.

I’m up in a flash, in the 0.5 seconds it takes to get to her room, she’s standing there crying. I scoop her up and run to the kitchen. I have the freezer door open and an icepack on her head in one smooth motion.

We’re experts at this routine.

All the while, I’m telling her it will be okay.

“What happened!?” I say, as we get settled into the closest kitchen chair.

“I fell off my bed,” she says between sobs.

“What did you land on?”

“The floor.”

And it was all I could do to stifle my laughter. Really? The floor? With such a literal answer, she is definitely my daughter!

“I know you landed on the floor, sweetie. I mean what body part did you land on the hardest?” I ask, looking for blood.

“My head.”

Good. I’d guessed correctly and already had an icepack on her head.

“What were you doing that made you fall off your bed?”

“I was hanging upside down.”

Again, I have to bite my tongue. She was hanging upside down!? From what!? And, she admitted this out loud!?

“Well, that’s why you fell on your head! You shouldn’t hang upside down off your bed.”

“I shouldn’t?” she said, genuinely confused. “Oh, you’re right, Momma! The monkey’s doctor** DID say no more monkeys hanging off the bed!”

“And now you know why…”

“Yeah!  You really DO fall on your head!”

**The other day at the StoryTime at the library, the theme was monkeys. One of the books they read was about the famous “no more monkeys jumping on the bed!” routine…only it involved all kinds of other naughty things monkeys do. And, yes, hanging off the bed also resulted in a monkey falling on her head. How apropos.

Claire vs. Chair

Published on Sunday, February 22, 2009 in Are you bleeding?, Claire and Drama. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

So, in the last three days, Claire has fallen off three different chairs.  I’m really hoping history doesn’t repeat itself, and make today Day Number Four.  Knock on wood…but not with your head, please.

It all started on Thursday.  Thursday was slotted to be a relatively full day.  We had swimming lessons bright and early in the morning, and then Story Time at a local library after that.  We had enough time to come home, have lunch, and make deviled eggs to take to Bunco that night.  Then, I’d have plenty of time for Claire to take a nap while I got ready.  My hubby was going to come home early to watch Claire so that I could make my escape.

Swimming Lessons and Story Time go without a hitch.  Even lunch was a success.  It was almost time for Claire’s nap, but she wanted to help me make “doubled eggs.”  So, I set the water to boil, boiled the eggs, and I let her pull up a kitchen chair to the sink to help me peel the eggs when they were done.

I have a system for deviled eggs that works for me.  It’s an appetizer that I love to make, and I know the recipe by heart.  As I’m mixing up the ingredients for the innards, Claire is running cold water over the eggs.  (They aren’t really hot at this point, so she is in no danger of burning herself.)

I turn around to put the mayonnaise and mustard back in the fridge.  I kneel down to find the right spaces, and all of a sudden, the kitchen chair Claire is standing on comes flying across the room and smashes into the cupboards right behind my head.  In a split second, I whip around and see Claire land smack on the floor, flat on her face, out flat like a trapeze artist who has missed his mark.

My brain can’t even really process what has happened.  The crash of the chair scared me half to death and seeing her fall like that made my heart stop.  How did this happen?  She wasn’t goofing around at all!

Because I’m already on the floor, I roll her over onto her back with one arm and open the freezer with the other.  I immediately put one icepack on her cheek and get the other one out just in case.  That’s when I see her arm.

Her right arm has a bruise in the form of a line, right above her elbow, and it’s already starting to swell.  My voice is calm and I’m telling her to calm down, and it will be okay, and I’m trying to believe the words myself.  I put the other icepack on her arm and pick up the phone.

My husband is nearly impossible to reach at the office, but I try there on the off chance that he’s at his desk.  He is.  I try not to panic but tell him that I don’t need to call 911 (no blood spurting, and no visible broken bones), but I’m calling the nurseline to see what they say about tips for telling how a bone is broken without using an x-ray machine.  I just wanted to give him a heads up.

I call the nurseline, and after answering their matrix of questions, it’s determined that I should take Claire to the pediatrician or the ER to be checked out.  I call the pediatrician, and they can get us in right away.  It’s in the same hospital as the ER, so x-rays won’t be an issue if they feel those are necessary.

Meanwhile, Claire is in good spirits.  She has stopped crying.  She tells me her face hurts a lot, but her arm only hurts if I poke it.  “Pet it gently Momma, and it won’t hurt as much,” she keeps telling me.

A trip to the hospital and one Sleeping Beauty Sticker later it’s determined that her arm isn’t broken.  He also checked out her cheekbone and her mouth.  No fractures there either.

We barely make it back in time for me to finish making the deviled eggs and get to my Ladies’ Night Out festivities.  “I don’t think I’m going to help you this time, Momma…okay?” was what Claire had to say when I asked her if she wanted to help me finish the project.  I didn’t blame her!

I still don’t know exactly what happened.  The accident reconstruction of the event did not match the injuries or position of the body, so it’s still a mystery.  I’m just glad I was right there, and that we got ice on everything right away.  You can’t even see a bruise on her cheek, and her arm looks worse than it feels.

So, that was Day One, Chair One.  What about the other two?  Friday’s Main Event involved a dining room chair, the back of her head and the carpeted floor.  (That one scared her more than anything, but the thump of her head is never a sound I like to hear.)  Saturday’s Smack Down included a tumble off of a small chair in Momma’s office, only this time her fall was broken by the play kitchen set, which again, made more racket than damage I think.

Momma has laid down the law, and new rules have been established with regard to proper chair usage.  We’ll see if this helps, but I’m not so sure.  I mean, in a majority of the cases, she wasn’t doing anything wrong.  In the meantime, it’s a good thing we have more than one ice pack, because they’re barely having time to solidify before we need to use them again.

The ups and downs (literally) of a fun-filled Friday

Published on Saturday, June 21, 2008 in Are you bleeding?, Claire, Drama, Moms' Group and Parenting 101. 4 Comments

Technically, I’m writing this after midnight, so it’s Saturday now. It’s amazing how quickly the day flies. Thankfully, I was able to end this Friday while watching movies with the hubby, all of the excitement of the day behind me.

Needless to say, this Friday started out as a lovely day and then took some interesting turns before ending on a pleasant note.

In the morning, Claire and I met some mom’s group people at the park here by the lake. Claire has discovered a newfound skill in climbing up all the ladders and chain-linky things on the playground equipment. She’s quite good at it…and amazingly so…and much to my dismay. ;)

She’s got mad skillz, yo!

But I am right there, making sure she doesn’t fall. Rather than tell her not to do it, I try to teach her how to do it the safest way. Far be it from me to hold her back. Can one stop the earth from turning? Can one hold back the tides? I didn’t think so.

Plus, I guess if I’m going to threaten to sell her to the circus, it’s best to get her skills in order. ;)

We played for a couple of hours and then she told me she needed to pee (yea!!), so we go to the porta-potties, which are disgusting (boo!). “It is GROSS!” Claire says, and it is. Even I wouldn’t pee in there. The poor thing refuses to go, and I don’t blame her. I tried to get her to pee behind a tree (shhh, don’t tell…I was desperate!), and she refused. So, we decide to call it a day and head back home…I was just hoping she could hold it for the walk back.

We sit down at a picnic table to get our things in order, and somehow, she slips off the bench and smacks the back of her head on the cement. Honestly, I didn’t even see it happen. I heard it. :-( I had my head turned for one second and the next thing I know, she’s lying under the picnic table on her back.

Luckily, it was popsicle day for the mom’s club, and the other mom still there from our group had an icepack in her cooler. So, I sit there with the icepack on the big ol’ goose-egg on Claire’s head.

Note to self: Goose-egg = swelling on the outside of the brain = GOOD

All the while, Claire is apologizing for falling off the picnic table. She wasn’t horsing around, and she wasn’t goofing off. There was no need to apologize. Poor little thing.

And, during all this, she still hasn’t wet her pants!

After sitting a while with the icepack, we decide to go home. Somehow, she made it home and onto the potty in time! As I’m getting lunch ready, she goes to her room and falls asleep! Uh oh! I decided not to wake her up, but kept checking on her. Finally, I woke her up to eat. She ate, grudgingly.

Then, I go to my office to check my mail, and she comes in and says she wants to be picked up. She says her head hurts and she doesn’t feel good. I pick her up and she throws up all over. Lovely. So, I run her to the bathtub and call the pediatrician. Hmmm, let’s see. I’m not a professional, but a goose-egg on her head, not acting like herself, and then barfing all over? Not the best sign. I’m not sure how to proceed, so I called the experts.

They say that letting her sleep is okay as long as I check to make sure she doesn’t aspirate on barf.

They also give me the following tips for future reference:
The “Don’t let them go to sleep” Rule = OUT
The “Letting them sleep but watching them like a hawk” Rule = IN
Throwing up ONCE after hitting your head = OKAY
Throwing up more than once after hitting your head = BAD

Good to know…so I don’t feel so bad for letting her fall asleep while I was making lunch.

My hubby has been in a class for work all week, so I page him with this latest development. This way, he won’t be surprised if he gets another page telling him at which ER to meet us.

Luckily, after the Tylenol and a nap, she seemed to be just fine. In fact, by the time Daddy got home, Claire was showing me how high she can jump (awesome! …not) and singing Happy Birthday to all of her animals.

And, in case there is any confusion, yes, she climbs all over all kinds of things without so much as a wobble and then smacks her head falling off a picnic table bench.

Go figure.

Friday Night Excitement

Published on Sunday, February 3, 2008 in Are you bleeding?, Claire, Drama and Parenting 101. 2 Comments

Well, we had some excitement on Friday night!

Claire and I were getting ready for dinner, and Daddy was on his way home from his week-long trip to London. According to the online status page, his flight had landed. If he had enough time after getting through Customs, he was going to call and check in with us. He wasn’t scheduled to arrive at our local International Airport until almost midnight, which would be much too late to wish Claire nighty-night, so he was planning on doing it before getting on the next flight. But, if he didn’t have time, we’d understand…

What follows is rather gross, so if you’d rather skip this blood and guts post, feel free. But, if you’ve ever been around toddlers for any length of time, I’m sure that the following is rather tame…

Either way, you’ve been warned. ;)

So, I’m getting things ready, and Claire is playing in the living room. All of a sudden, she falls. Now, she’s a toddler, and she falls all the time. Usually, this is no big deal and she bounces right up and continues playing as though nothing happened. But, because of what happened in July (June 30th, actually), every time she falls I catch my breath.

This time, she cries. Oh no! I hope there’s no blood! I look at her face, totally expecting to see blood spurting out of her head like before, but I don’t see anything. Whew! That’s all I need…another day like that, especially with my hubby gone.

But, she’s upset, and she says she’s hurt her finger. She’s holding her right hand, so I’m wondering if she jammed a finger on the floor when she fell.

“It’s okay, Claire,” I said calmly. “Let’s go into the kitchen and take a look,” I said as I led her into the kitchen where the light was better.

That’s when I saw the blood. Why does there have to be blood? So, I took a deep breath and willed myself not to panic.

The ring finger on her right hand is all bloody, and it’s dripping into her palm. At first glance I thought maybe she’d hurt her fingernail and that it was bleeding down her finger. I quickly grabbed a dry paper-towel and tried to clean it up. That’s when I realized that her fingernail was fine, but her finger was cut. I quickly applied pressure to it and held her little hand up, hoping that this wasn’t going to require stitches. Please don’t let there be stitches again. Please.

By this time, Claire had stopped crying and was doing a great job of being still.

“Okay, Momma needs to look at your finger. I’m just going to peek at it and see why it’s bleeding,” I said.

“I hit it on the step stool!” she said.

“What?” I said out loud. That doesn’t even make sense, I said in my head.

“I fell and I hit my finger on my step stool,” she said again. She was adamant. Still, this made no sense. It has rounded edges; it’s made of plastic and covered in non-skid rubber. Getting a goose-egg from hitting your head on it? Yes, that I could see. Bumping your head if you jump off of it? Yes, that I could see. Cutting your finger on it? Nope, sorry…I just don’t see how that’s possible.

“Okay, well, let’s not worry about that now,” I said calmly, trying to get the bleeding to stop and wondering what in the world she’d cut it on. Upon further investigation, I realized that her finger wasn’t sliced, but that the skin was actually gone. It had been completely sheered off, practically down the whole length of her finger!

I consciously took another deep breath. Please don’t panic. Not in front of Claire. She’s not crying. Don’t cry. Unclench. Breathe.

After keeping more pressure on it, the majority of the bleeding had stopped. We went into the bathroom and put neosporin and band-aids on it. Toddlers have such tiny fingers, and the cut was so long that it was difficult to get the band-aids just right. She insisted on the Barbie Band-Aids from her previous accident, and those are to tiny! We ended up getting her fixed right up, and then Puppy got a band-aid, too, with strict instructions not to mess with it. Claire did a good job of reminding him throughout the evening. ;)

So, after I get her all patched up, I decided to do some investigating in the living room. What in the world could she have fallen on that would slice her finger so badly? I’d seen where she tripped, and I’d seen where she landed, and there were only a couple of items that looked relatively dangerous enough to do such a thing. I looked at her little folding table, but the hinges weren’t sharp and were way too high. I looked at the rim of her little plastic princess tea pot, but that wasn’t quite right either.

Then, Claire tells me, again, “I fell on my step stool!”

“I know you keep saying that, but how did you hurt your finger?” I ask.

“The holes on the side, Momma. The holes for your fingers! I fell and bonked my finger on the hole!” she said.

Okay, this is the really gross part…

This particular step stool has two holes on either end that you can use to carry it. I looked, and sure enough, there was the skin from her finger, still in the hole on the side of it! Do you know how hard it would be to cut yourself on this hole? Never in a hundred years would I have guessed that the step stool was capable of such a thing. Somehow, when she tripped, she landed with her finger just right, and it went in the hole on the side, slicing the skin right off. Unbelievable.

What’s even worse was she’d told me right away what had happened, but I hadn’t believed her. You wouldn’t expect a 2-yr old to be so aware of what’s going on and actually tell you what had happened, but she had.

Of course, right after we get everyone bandaged up and the mystery solved, Daddy calls. He’s made it through Security and Customs! He’s found his gate! He expects to hear about a typical Friday but gets an exciting story of step stools and band-aids and bloody fingers instead. Claire was quite excited to tell him all the gory details.

She really doesn’t seem to be bothered by any pain, and it still looks gross, but she’s doing a good job of keeping the band-aids on it. I was able to change my game-plan in that department and figured out a way to get the band-aid to stay on by cutting a larger band-aid to fit correctly. Only, we didn’t use the Barbie Band-Aids, we used the “very special brown band-aids that Daddy uses,” and you’d think they were hot pink with flowers on them for how excited Claire was. Puppy has a special brown band-aid on, too, and Claire did a great job of reminding him not to pick at it all day…

So, that’s not the exciting Friday night I had planned, but it was exciting nonetheless. Honestly, I prefer my excitement with a little less blood, thankyouverymuch. ;)

My Old Journal: My Injuries

Published on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 in Are you bleeding?, Drama, My old journal, NaBloPoMo 2007 and Photos. 0 Comments

NaBloPoMo – Day Twenty-one

MY INJURIES: THE FINGER by me (Jan. 2, 1993 Sat.)
Santa gave us a really special gift: a gerbil! We named him Gus. He is so cute!

When we first met him, there was too much confusion and holding him incorrectly (I wasn’t though) and he bit me!

I was just the next person in line and he attached himself to my finger! Dad had to get him off.

Here is a diagram (you can tell I really like those!)

[see picture below showing the drawing of the palm of my left hand– things I’ve written by the diagram: This is where my finger bends. It was very swollen and painful, but I didn’t get any infection. They say gerbil slobber is cleaner than our own! :) You can tell he has crooked teeth!]

my old journal page 213

You can click on the picture a couple of times to see bigger and bigger versions…

Okay, the funniest part about the above entry, as found on page 213 of my old journal is the fact that I had to specify which injury I was talking about. As you may remember, I fell down the stairs in September. This was not my first brush with gravity and/or drama, but it’s the first one I’ve had since starting this blog. Never fear; I’m sure there will be more.

The unfortunate part about Gus taking his frustration and fear out on me was that I was holding him properly, but I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was so agitated by the noise, manhandling, and camera flashes, and had I realized just how agitated he was, I would have waited before holding him. He was SO cute, but wow, could he bite! :) I still have those scars, but they are very faint.

The above journal entry was written during my freshman year in college, while I was on Winter Break. About 10 days prior to that, I have another journal entry that explains how I accidentally got my head slammed in one of the outside doors to my dorm, cutting my ear. No, it didn’t break my glasses (whew!!) and it didn’t require stitches, but looking back, I should have probably had some. I’ve spared you the details (journal entry complete with hand-drawn diagram!) of that incident, but in a nutshell, it involved having a snowball fight late at night while taking a break from studying. In trying to run to safety, one of the guys I was with thought I’d cleared the doorway before he pulled the door shut, but I had not.

Needless to say, the door was heavy and had an automatic closer, and the door cracked me on the side of the head. It all happened so fast; I wasn’t quite sure what had happened. I really didn’t hold my friend responsible, because it happened so quickly. I knew he hadn’t done it on purpose. He apologized profusely, and he did have a fun quote from the night, “It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an ear!” :)

During my freshman year, I lived in a co-ed dorm. The guys had one wing, and the girls had another. The RA on the guys’ side and the hall director were the ones “on duty,” and they were quite alarmed to see so much blood, but they were both very calm in getting me patched up. The college nurse ended up putting a butterfly strip on it the next morning, and it healed relatively nicely. I still have that scar, too, but you don’t see it unless you know to look.

So, anyway, that’s why it’s funny that I had to distinguish which of my injuries the above journal entry involved. My family was ruthless with the comments, and it took me a while to live that down. In fact, in our main bathroom, we had a MagnaDoodle hanging by the magazine rack. Everyone would take turns drawing parts of a picture and adding to the drawing. One of the funniest ones was a stick figure of me with my ear stuck in a doorway. It wasn’t quite a realistic rendition of events, but I still laugh when I think about that picture. :)

In fact…look what I found in my old photo album!!

Here is a picture of Gus (right before he bit me…he thinks he’s being accosted by my dad and my brother, so he acts out toward the next unlucky victim…me) and a picture of my fateful encounter with a door, as drawn by one of my sisters:

Gus and my ear

Fun times. Fun times.
:)

Special Note: Speaking of photos, guess what else I found!? I found some pictures from my car accident!! I’ve posted them over on that post…so, go check ‘em out! They were exactly where I thought they should be. Why I didn’t see them before, I’ll never know. Oh well, had I found them a month ago, I would have never found my old journal! I love it when things work out the way they’re supposed to. ;)

Grace, is that you?

Published on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 in Are you bleeding?, Claire, Drama and Random Thoughts. 6 Comments

Well, now I’ve done it…

I start this post by saying that Claire is okay. Momma? Not so much. I’ve been better…that’s for sure.

Claire and I have been practicing walking down the stairs. After last night, it’s quite clear that she has surpassed her teacher and is much better at it than I am. ;)

She’s at the stage where she insists on going down the stairs like a normal person, but she requires a hand to hold. Yesterday was much chillier than it’s been lately, so she had on her socks. She thought it was great fun to slip down each step with both feet at once. This is not the acceptable way to do things, so I made her stop and said, “We go ‘big step’ with one foot, and then…” before I could finish my sentence, my own foot slipped (because I, too, was wearing socks), and I fell all the way to the bottom!!

I hit my tailbone/lower back REALLY hard when I landed on the first step and then hard on each step after that. I screamed for my hubby, because I’d left Claire standing at the top of the steps!! We’d made it to the second or third step before Momma took her tumble. I was so afraid she’d fall. She was quite upset, but stood still.

Luckily, I’d had the wherewithal to let go of her hand, so that she didn’t fall, too!! Of course, I had my cup of water in my other hand, so there was water everywhere, and I was in excruciating pain. That pain hasn’t really subsided, and my whole lower back/tailbone area is swollen. I don’t feel any tingling, so I don’t think I’ll go in to the doctor yet. Plus, what could they do? All the good drugs make me pass out or vomit…and those options just don’t seem very appealing to me.

Sitting here at my computer hurts just as much as laying down does. Walking is pretty unbearable, and the act of getting up and down is brutal.

I guess if you’re gonna go, go big. ;)

My hubby decided to work from home today, because I really can’t pick up Claire, lift her over her play area walls, or in/out of her crib. He has meetings (conference calls) most of the day today, and is being as available as he can be at this point.

Needless to say, Claire has finally seen Momma cry, and she was quite distressed. She’s been telling us all night and all morning that Momma fell down, and Momma was crying, and Momma’s back huuuuuuuuuuuuurts.

I talked to my contact at the company where I work as an independent contractor, and she’s telling them to stop the files for today. I hadn’t decided what to do when I called her, but the pain is making it hard to focus. While on the phone with her, I noticed the 2-inch diameter bruise/swollen area on my arm, by my elbow. I knew I whacked it on the way down, but I had no idea it was so disgusting.

Now, I understand why my hubby kept trying to distract me from looking at my arm! This morning, while still in bed, I said, “My elbow is killing me!” and I kept trying to twist it to look, and he said, “There’s no need to get freaked out. Let’s focus on your back.” At the time that didn’t make sense, because I wasn’t getting freaked out about my arm, so I didn’t know why he would say that. It’s all becoming very clear now. :)

Anyway…I have a bunch of files to get finished for today, so I’m going to focus on that. All the pain-relief/breathing techniques I learned for my labor are coming in handy today. (Someday, I’ll post about that experience.) If being in bed hurts just as much as sitting at my computer, I’d rather be as productive as I can today, because I don’t know what the pain will be like tomorrow.

I had these grand intentions of posting about this being the anniversary of the September 11th attacks and my feelings about that day, but reality jumped in and changed the agenda on me. That’s okay. Quiet contemplation is more my speed today.

So, there ya have it. No, my name is not Grace, and if it were, the irony would be overwhelming. ;) I hope you’re having a better day than I am!!

Edited to add:  Check out the follow-ups to this story! Necessity, the Mother of Invention, Attack of the Side Effects, and I feel giddy!