Ouch!!

READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED DUE TO GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF AN INJURY...NOT FOR THE QUEASY!


Well. We had a very interesting Saturday! Everything was going on as a normal Saturday....a relaxing morning, some shopping, naps for the kids.... . Then we decided that we should welcome our newest neighbours on our road, so we went and brought the Bartel's some squares. Our next stop was our next door neighbours. They have not moved in yet, but they were working there so we thought that we would stop in for a game of ping pong and to see their kitchen which is finally almost done.
So we went downstairs, took a peek at the new shelving that they put in, and then Eric and Josh went to take out the ping pong table that was back behind some painted doors in the corner of the basement.
I was just taking Aidan off the couch when I turned around to just see the one end of ping pong table slam down unexpectedly as they were carrying it. I guess that Eric's hand was in the was way when it fell as he gave a big yell and held his hand. I asked his if he was ok. Now if you know Eric, you ask him if he's ok when he's hurt, and he always say, I'll be fine. This time however, he said/yelled "NO" ....uh oh!! It was then that I knew that he had to be hurting good! So he held up his hand and all I saw was blood blood and some more blood. If you know Eric and I, you know that neither one of us handle blood very well! But I quickly brought Eric to our house and grabbed the first aid kit. I was scrambling to try and remember the first aid training that I have. So I grabbed it, and brought it out to the garage. At this time the colouring on Eric's face is getting close to the colour of the stones on our driveway. Not good. So I got him to sit before he passed out on me. Then I took a look at the damage.........and I think I started to turn grey too. My first glance told me that the tip of Eric's middle finger on his right hand was almost off. It made me quite nauseous to look at it, so I looked long enough to see that it was very deep, and way down his finger too, almost to the middle knuckle. I knew that there was nothing that I could do, so I got an abdominal compress from my first aid kit, and put it on his hand to catch the blood. Putting pressure on it hurt too much for Eric. Then I went and cancelled our dinner plans, called Mike and Jodie to see if they could take the kids, packed up some stuff for them, got my neighbour to get my kids from their house, got Eric some sugar, as he was really really grey and started to shiver, and got the kids in the van. Off we went to drop them off and then we went to the willet in Paris ( a small hospital with an urgent care instead of an ER)
We were really lucky that there was no one there and that we were seen right away. After registering Eric and checking Eric's vitals, they put him on a stretcher...just in case he passed out. I think that he was in shock at this point...although he kept saying that he was fine, just cold. Meanwhile, I kept popping mentos in his mouth. The doctor came to check it out and said that it definately needed stitches, but first he wanted an xray to see if it was broken or not. So they gave Eric some freezing. This was his least favorite part! Then once the freezing set it we went on over to xray. Sure enough, his finger was broken. The tip of the bone, above the last knuckle was sliced right off. There is nothing that they can do about that though. So we went back to the stretcher and the doctor started stitching and cleaning it up . They coved him up with some warm blankets as he was still shaking. It seemed to help. He got about 10 or 11 stitched to make sure that the skin wouls stay down and that the nail would not fall off right away. It was cut in half right horizontally through the center. Then the nurse came in and wrapped it all up so that we could go home. We were actually in and out in an hour!!
So we went off to get the kids from Mike and Jodie's house (thanks guys) and brought them home for dinner. Eric was not feeling good when we got back, but thankfully having supper helped out. Jay and Veronica came over just for the evening...instead of for supper. So I still cut my hair cut! Eric's not actually having too much pain, as long as he remembers to elevate it sometimes. We are very thankful that he did not actually lose the end of his finger....I'm not sure how well I would have handled it if I had to go find the tip and put it in a bag of ice to bring with.........

Here's my 'brave' man. This was before dinner, when he still wasn't feeling great and was really cold! He's really hard to take care of because he hates to be sick, or hurt, and doesn't want to take it easy. The nurse at the hospital looked at him like he was crazy when he said that he would be going in to work today. And that's where he is now. I just called him, and he said that it only hurts if he uses it, but that it is freezing!

On Saturday night, Eric and I tried to change the bandage, but we were both getting queasy, and I didn't have enough gauze, so we stopped. Yesterday we picked up some more and Eric went to our friend's house who is a nurse and she did it for us! ( with Eric popping more mentos :) ) Thanks Laura! She'll probably do it today too.

I hope that other people's weekends were not as eventful as ours!