Really Not Accident Prone

I had a vivid flashback to one of my most scary early childhood memories last week. Do you remember the first time you called 911? I do. I was maybe 8 or 9 years old and my mom was washing dishes. She was washing a big glass bowl when it slipped and fell into the sink. As my mom instinctively went to grab it, the shattered glass sliced open her fingers. She threw her hands up, spraying the wall and ceiling with blood. It looked like a CSI crime scene in our kitchen. I ran over to my mom, who was simply clutching her hand and not moving. We both watched as the sink filled with blood and I asked her if I should call 911. I think she was in shock because she said "I don't know" and just stood there silently. I decided to just call and an ambulance came and took my mom to the hospital to get stitched up. I've never put myself in my mom's place, wondering what to do in that situation with 3 little kids to take care of and no one else around to help. I recall my grandpa coming to the house later to look after us, but my memories after my mom was taken away in the ambulance are very fuzzy.

Last week, I had a rather similar accident. And I am not accident prone, especially in the kitchen. I rarely hurt myself and I feel pretty confident with a knife.

Unfortunately, I may be a bit overconfident. One day I set about cooking dinner and baking bread and a batch of cookies all at once. Dinner needed to simmer for 90 minutes so I was in a rush to get all the ingredients in the pot. I opened several huge cans of tomatoes and was dumping ingredients in my pot very hurriedly when I swung around to grab a can and sliced my finger on one of the lids.

I knew immediately that I at least nicked myself and ran over to the sink to get my finger away from all the food. I grabbed a clean cloth to stop the bleeding, but it soaked through in no time. Yikes! I rushed into the bathroom for the first aid kit, Connor hot on my heels. Holding my hand over the sink, I kept trying to wipe enough blood away to see how bad the cut was but it was pouring out. Nothing I did helped and I was running out of clean cloths and starting to feel a bit panicky. Blood had spurted all over the bathroom during my attempts to look at the wound. I finally sat down with a towel wrapped around my hand and tried to be patient. Connor was fussing at me to wipe up the blood and when I didn't  get to it quickly enough, he tried cleaning it himself with a teddy bear. Great.

Honestly, after awhile I was feeling quite awful. If it was anxiety or a true loss of blood, I don't know but I started feeling weak and shaky and very concerned that I could not stop my bleeding. I finally wrapped it in band aids fast enough to avoid pouring blood all over and cleaned up and tried to finish dinner.

My word. I went through at least 15 bandages and when I went to bed a few hours later I thought the worst was over. I woke up in the morning to my hand and pillow and sheets all bloody. The urge to exclaim "bloody hell!" in a British accent was at the tip of my tongue all day. Seriously, it was bad.

But thank God, not nearly as bad as my mom's accident that cut right to the bone. Mine has been healing okay and after 24 hours, the bleeding stopped. I swear I am not accident prone, but I do plan on being much more careful. What would I have done with Connor had I really hurt myself? Scary.

There is a funny aspect to this story. Earlier, when I finally got hold of some band-aids, they were a box of Connor's camo-print band aids. Connor was not happy to see his special band aids on my finger.  He kept pointing at it and fussing at me, then pointing to his own little index finger as though he needed a bandage too. When I didn't comply with that request, he proceeded to kiss his imaginary boo-boo to try to convince me he was truly injured. :) It was really cute and funny. And he kept that up for quite awhile until I found my own stash of boring flesh-colored band aids to use instead. :)

Sadly, this little incident put a damper on my plans for bread-making. I can't knead dough with an open wound or a band aid. Gross! So that bummed me out but it all turned out pretty well in the end because my awesome sister-in-law Karen sent me some easy bread recipes. And one was a no-knead yeast bread! Hallelujah! It was fantastic, but I'll save the bread-making report for another post.

For now, pray I don't have any more accidents because this mama can't afford to be out of commission!