My husband, Dad, Uncle Jimmy, Cousin JP, and a few of their friends had been up at Uncle Jimmy's hunting cabin for a couple nights when, in the early morning, I got a text from my husband, Matt:
"Do you have any Steristrips?"
My reply was: "No but I can get some. You or ? Dad usually uses duct tape."
Matt called shortly thereafter telling me not to worry---it wasn't as bad as he thought. What really happened is Dad discovered that I knew he had a cut and didn't want me to worry.
Around eleven o’clock that morning, Mom, Aunt Carolyn, and I drove up the long, narrow, and winding road to the hunting cabin. We arrived in the cool, crisp late morning, and all the guys were packing up and almost ready to head back to civilization. Dad was standing with Mom telling her what happened. I walked up in mid-conversation and caught "Jimmy and I just got it to stop bleeding," "peeling potatoes," and "in the dark." His middle finger on his right hand was duct taped, so I didn’t ask to see it, but knew if it took hours to get it to stop bleeding, he probably needed stitches. I was trying not to plague him with questions and concerns, though.
Later, when we returned to Nannie's, Mom requested that Dad show us the cut.
He and mom pulled off the duct tape and two of the three band aids before I interrupted with "Ick! Leave it alone! It's starting to bleed again!"
Everyone agreed he needed stitches and someone pointed out that a cut like that could be taped up but would drive him crazy since it was on his right hand and he was always busy-busy-busy and it would take longer to heal without stitches.
Mom put some fresh bandaids on, causing dad to break his silence with a pained chuckle, "Ouch! Jimmy's gentler than you are!" Dad and I re-wrapped his finger with the duct tape then he disappeared upstairs without a word.
We sat around discussing Dad's need for stitches and his stubbornness.
He came downstairs after five minutes and said, "I don't need to take a shower before I go, do I?"
"No!" We chorused. He had been at the cabin for a few days but had changed clothes so he no longer smelled of man-cave and fried food.
I asked if I could go with him to the hospital. I was antsy and needed to get out of the house.
 |
| In the closet-sized waiting room, duct tape on finger |
“So how did this happen?” The doctor asked after inspecting Dad’s finger.
“Well, I was getting ready to peel potatoes before everyone got up. I was cleaning the knife, but I had it turned the wrong way…”
She gave him two shots at the base of his middle finger, a digital block. “Now this is the only time you can flip me off,” she smiled at him and covered the rest of his hand with a blue cloth. After a few minutes she started cleaning the cut. Dad winced and jumped, then just gritted his teeth and got very still. “Can you feel that?” I asked.
“Yeah I can feel it,” he responded.
I looked at the doctor who said, “Well, you will feel some pressure….” To which Dad replied, “I can feel that stuff burning,” and gestured to the antiseptic.
Apparently the doctor figured it was nothing, because she continued to clean and swipe at the cut with the brown antiseptic-drenched gauze while dad made ouch faces, which consisted of him gritting his teeth and grimacing.
The doctor then got out her suture kit and poked the needle into his skin at the top and side of the cut. “Now, I can definitely feel that,” Dad announced. “In fact, the only part that’s numb is the bottom of my finger.”
This made her pause. “It’s just numb down there?" She asked, pointing to the base of his finger.
“Yeah,” Dad replied.
“Well, in like, less than ten percent of patients the digital block doesn’t work.”
“It just feels like a bee sting, go ahead and finish. I’ll be alright.” Dad directed. “A white-faced hornet sting,” he amended.
“Soooo,” I asked, “How many stitches do you think he’ll need?”
The doctor leaned over and inspected the cut again, her long wavy dark hair falling forward, and said, “Probably about ten.”
“So ten bee stings Dad. That’s a lot of stings.”
The doc said, “No, it’s going to get worse as I go. I’ll do a local anesthetic.” She started gathering supplies during which time Dad could resist no more and pushed down the blue cloth so he could have a good look at his finger, which had been slowly looking worse the longer we were there.
“Aaah! That’s my sterile area!” The doctor cried. “Now I have to sterilize again.” She plucked the blue cloth from Dad’s hand with forceps and threw it away, covered his hand with a paper sheet, the middle finger sticking out, and started slopping the antiseptic on with the gauze again. She then injected inside the cut and area around it to numb it up.
Finally, Dad’s finger was numb and she stitched him up as they chatted about horses and deer. Dad kept leaning over to see what she was doing. He started to lift his left hand to move the paper down to get a better look. I grabbed his hand and said, “No touching!” The thoughtful nurse who was in and out pushed the paper down so he didn’t have to crane his neck to watch his finger get stitched.
Dad ended up with eight stitches and stern instructions on how to care for it.
Two hours later, we were back at Nannie’s.
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