Week 4: I think we have an emergency…

So this past Friday I spent the evening in the emergency room at the hospital.

How did this happen? You might ask.

Lets start at the beginning…

We had some friends over for dinner. We were going to grill some burgers. I had just finished making kabobs of zucchini and mushrooms, and was about to slice some apples for a salad.

I know. Apples in a salad? Not my usual but I was attempting to be adventurous.

Anyways, so I was holding the apple and using a knife that was possibly too big to cut the apple and talking across the counter to my friend. She was kindly holding my four month old while I prepped in the kitchen.

I pushed the knife into the apple, and slice!

I felt a weird sensation at first, assuming I must have nicked my finger. But when I looked down, I noticed a big chunk of my nail missing. Not just nail, as it turned out. The finger beneath it as well.

I called for my husband, who was about to take the burgers out to start grilling. He assessed the situation and grabbed a paper towel just in time as blood started pouring out.

I will save you the gory details, but it was gross.

So I stood at the sink while my friend ran to get her husband, who was in the yard with my older daughter, almost two. I couldn't help but laugh, likely giving the impression that I had completely lost it.

While my husband collected the tip of my finger from the cutting board and put it on ice, my friend's husband came in and went out to start the car. (We do not own a vehicle, so thank God they were there!)

Within a few minutes I had my iPhone and my health card and was off to the hospital. At this point, I was super nauseous and dizzy.

I went in and they redirected me to triage. Now, this was my first time in emergency, but it was less unpleasant than I had thought it would be.

I waited until a nurse called me over to check my finger out. Now I had a face cloth wrapped around my finger, which I had to peel off, leading to more bleeding. And by now, it had really started to throb.

My hand after the whole ordeal.

She quickly examined it before wrapping it up and sending me back to the waiting room. At this time, my husband took a cab to the hospital and our friends watched the girls.

Now, the emergency room is not nearly as scary as I had imagined. Nonetheless, not my favourite place in the world.

Luckily in all the waiting, the profuse bleeding in my finger had finally stopped.

When they finally (hours later) called my name, they told my husband he couldn't come in with me. Boo.

So I reluctantly left him behind and went to sit on a weird cross between a bed and a chair surrounded by curtains, an occupied bed on the other side of both the curtains beside me.

And more waiting.

Finally a nurse came and asked all the questions they have to ask, which I had already been asked twice. People really need to start exchanging notes at the hospital.

Then a while later I was seen by a doctor.  She was very small, sweet and friendly. I was so thankful for that! The nurse I had was not overly friendly so the doctor definitely lifted my spirits.

So she tried to unwrap my finger. Nothing. The bandage was stuck to it (ouch!) and because it had sat for hours, the blood had dried it on pretty well. So I was given a little basin of saline solution to soak my finger in. And my finger started bleeding again.

In the end, after fifteen minutes of soaking, it didn't really help. So she apologized many times before peeling the bandage off. Even more pain. Even more bleeding. I am so lucky I don't get nauseous at the sight of blood.

Not that I needed to be any more nauseous.

So once the bandage was removed, I was moved to a bed to my left (it's occupant had left). I was given four freezing needles, and soon had no feeling in my finger. Which was awesome.

She examined it. She commented how bad it was (note to medical professionals: never admit how bad something looks). She wrapped it with some strange foam that she said would help my blood to clot.

It was rebandaged and I was told I could go home. Having had to pee pretty much the whole time I was in there, I finally went to the bathroom and washed my one hand (I was told to not touch my injured finger or get it wet).

I went back to the waiting room and was collecting my husband when a young lady in a wheelchair pointed out that I was bleeding. A lot.

Back in I went!

I was promptly returned to the bed and the doctor came over and inspected my finger. Again. I was notified that because the bleeding didn't stop, it would need to be cauterized.

Now for those of you who don't know, let me explain briefly was cauterizing is. They either use silver nitrate (looks like a long matchstick) or a little battery-powered electric device to burn closed an open capillary. The silver nitrate uses a chemical reaction to burn it closed, while the little device just heats up massively and electrically burns it closed.

As the doctor was not sure where the electric device was, she decided to go with the silver nitrate.

So there I was, laying on a hospital bed, my finger literally in her hands. But as the freezing had not yet worn off, I was not expecting pain.

Boy, was I wrong.

It was the worst pain I had ever been in. And I have had two babies, so that is saying something. (With drugs, so I'm sure having babies without drugs is much worse… all my respect to those who can do it).

She did this three times before I could barely hold it together and she decided to freeze my finger again. My whole body was shaking and my good hand was gripping the bed rails so hard my knuckles were stark white.

So another round of freezing and we were back at it. She tried to close the bleeding capillary one more time before deciding to get a second opinion on what to do.

"Melanie, this is Dr So-and-so."

Not really in the mood to meet somebody new, I grunted and he too examined my finger. He decided to try to cauterize it himself, explaining that my doctor had been too gentle.

Too gentle?!?!

So luckily she had just redone the freezing, because I would have been in tears while he burnt my finger.

After everything was done, my finger was wrapped and I was discharged. I was in increasing amounts of pain, it was after midnight and I was exhausted.

I popped some tylenol upon returning home and had a very restless night due to pain and trying not to let anything touch my injured finger.

My finger two days after the "incident"

All in all though, I would say I was so lucky it wasn't worse. So happy to have Someone watching out for me!

Stay safe!

xoxo

- M