2004-01-21 - 7:27 p.m.
a slice of life
This is not an easy story to type; my left index finger is twice its normal size with stitches, bandages and brace. The story begins sometime earlier today as I cancelled a business trip and read the good news/testemonial that my friend won her county’s pageant against statistical odds and will be competing for Miss Georgia this June. (I remember when I encouraged her to enter despite the odds because it made perfect sense that God use her crownings to increase her ministry, but I got less enthused as Saturday approached and I wondered if God would act in sensible ways this time. He did.) After my quick, solo celebration Adam tried ro teach me how to cut his hair with the trimmer we bought after church yesterday.
The main room was filled with the humm of the trimmer, interupted by instruction and skeptical “it’s fine” comments, until we had to rush out the door to work without a minute to spare. At work, the stress level was immediately apparent and unreasonably intense for Monday morning in January. I took a stock list then came over to Perishables in time to hear how my manager had to cover a mis-scheduling when he is normally scheduled to place purchase orders. Dry Goods being what it is at this time of the year, I told Andy to place his orders while I worked on the line. He left and I caused a bigger problem than we started with.
“Half pound of Rosette de Lyon, comin’ up.” Taking off the casing for the salami, I sliced right through the top of my finger. Knives were meant to cut meat after all. Shocked, a little in pain, I squoze my finger then released. Not the nick I expected, my glove filled with blood and I soaked the other one in the process of removing it. I couldn’t stop the bleeding long enough for a bandage.
Upstairs people started telling me I needed stitches. Last time I was told that I was fine with a butterfly bandaid and some honey. I am sure I made quite a sight in the airports. This wound was a bit more graphic.
At the urgent care I had a moment of terror about insurance until I understood this was covered by work. The secretary looked concerned by the blood-soaked cloth binding my hand. “Is that soaking through?” Ineffective question at best. They called me in last, although I was the second in and nearly fainted in the waiting room from the loss of blood, anxiety, and self-depracation.
Meanwhile, I read a magazine for working mdothers (looking back, all the patients, except one, were women; and all the magazines were women specific) in which there was an article featuring the family who makes our Vermont Shepherds Cheese. One of the daughters, currently a teenager, originally wanted to care for the sheep and their guardian llama, an animal that protects sheep from coyotes. At the age of 9 she started making cheese, by age 11 she was making cheese on her own. What a cool skill! I read equally inspiring articles about family businesses, and the principle of the necessity for growth in business was reinforced by my reading.
In the middle of a silent praise to God for bringing these stories to my attention, my name was called. My pride being what it is, I preferred my kind companion to stay behind. Behind closed doors I was left mostly alone. Nurses dressed in bright pink pants with a Curious George smock entered and exited, looked at my wound, re-bandaged my finger, and told me “he” will be here shortly. I stared at the wall, made myself sick with anticipation, recited the Lord’s Prayer and wished very much to hold the hand of someone I loved.
“He” finally came, introduced himself quickly with a name I have since forgotten, explained why I had to have stitches and then desribed the horrible procedure of stitching my skin together, promising to give me a Tetnus shot since I was due; he only managed to increase my terror.
He left, the nurse returned. After placing two utility tables just so, she pulled out a blue bundle from the cabinet. I watched her carefully not sure at the time whether I liked her or trusted her just yet. I watched her, I suppose, much the way a prisoner watches with dreadful curiosity as his torturer lays out the tools. She would only touch the very ends of the blue paper that covered a container of sterile utensils and cloth. Each move was studied, uncertain, and stranger than the last. Untouchable, there thry lay, the tools that would bind me once again to myself. She poured a cler liquid into one cup and iodine into another. I cringed and turned to face the wall again.
So it did hurt in all the ways the good doctor promised and at all the times he said it would. “So,” he said, “ir was a pretty sharp knife.” “Yeah, we keep them sharp: It’s safer that way.” He didn’r catch the irony or didn’t wanr to. After all was done, but not all said, the nurse joked about my extensive bleeding, but I did not a gree that there was anything to laugh about.
At work, my adrenaline kicked in until my manager sat me down just long enough for the anesthesia to wear off and my beloved walked me through the cold strrets and alleyways of Ann Arbor to where the car was parked. It wa only until I was home, wrapped in the quilt, with the computer in my lap that I realized what one slice truly took out of me.
My hands are strangely the hands of a lady--pale, small, clean, nearly free of scars. Those scars that I have are hidden in the natural creases or look almost natural. When I think back upon my life, ever since smasshing my middle fingers in a door, all the way through the regular outdoor work I did since moving to Crescent City; I think my hands should look rougher than they do.
