The One Where My Husband Cut His Hand

The integration of a feline into our household has been a resounding success, particularly on the part of my husband, who is completely in love. The first night the cat cried from 1 to four am, and nothing I could do soothed her. She paced back and forth outside my bedroom door and said,"Meow! Meow! Meow!" and then, promptly at four, fell asleep. The girls decided that she was afraid of the dark and must be put to sleep with the light on. "Isn't that ridiculous? A cat afraid of the dark?" I said.

"Well, perhaps she was traumatized by being outside at night because she couldn't get back to her home. There are predators out at night!"

"Thankyou for psychoanalyzing my cat,"I responded. We've become THOSE people, yet whatever the cause, the cat sleeps fine with the light on.

In other news, my husband came to pick me up from a truly terrible day at work, and had a wad of bloody toiletpaper around his thumb. "I cut myself a little bit. I'll show you when we get home. It's no big deal." He was totally casual, and so we drove all the way home before I saw that he had sliced a three inch long, one inch deep cut into the meat of his hand, and that muscle and fatty tissue was gaping open like one of those plastic change purses that you squeeze on the ends. After he showed me, he layed down on the bed, and almost passed out.

"Hey, guess what! We are going to the ER!"

"I'm fine,"he says, eyes rolling back into his head.

"Did you bleed a lot?"

"No, not at all,"he tells me.


"Doesn't it hurt?"

"No, it's fine."

"Come on, get your ass in the car. Come on, kids, this will be fun!"



He argued with me all the way there. Finally, the only thing I could tell him was,"I've heard your opinion on that," and put the pedal to the metal.

They took us right inside despite the lines in the ER. I guess the change purse effect made an impact on the triage nurse. Then my hubs had to inform the physician's assistant that he has a little issue with needles. It's not that he's afraid. Really he's not. He has some sort of biological reaction where he passes out. Oy, with the passing out again!


So, they give him a shot of lydicane. His eyes roll back and out he goes. He comes to, but joy of joys, the pain killer has no effect. So, they need to give him more lydicane. He turns green, and starts sweating and shaking, but doesn't pass out this time. He starts heaving. They take away the little bean shaped bowl they give you at the hospital usually to throw up in, and come back with a larger bucket shaped thing for him. His body has this kind of violent reaction to shots, and no one can explain why.

Still, the pain killer takes no effect.


"Do you want another shot?" the P.A. eagerly asks.

"For the love of god, just stitch him up!" I say.

So, with no pain killer worth a shit, they start jabbing the wound with a needle to sew it up. The wonderful miracle of hands is that they are so amazingly packed with nerve endings. They are designed to feel with pin point accuracy. They are sensitive instruments.

My husband was roaring like a lion. It was like a scene from a civil war hospital. The steely doctor, the useless, hand holding nurse (played by me), and the soldier screaming like a maniac. I had previously hidden the children in a nearby corridor with a tv.


It was only seven stitches. The cut was very deep, but relatively short. Soon over, and out the door we go, prescription in hand. By the time we got to the pharmacy, the man was pretty ok, opening and closing his hand and going,"Well, now it's numb!"


I apologized profusely. "I shouldn't have told them to go ahead and stitch you. But watching you have that reaction to the shots, I thought that couldn't be good for you either! And they wanted to give you another!"


"How could you know?" he said, shaking his limp hand in amazement. "It's over now. I could have taken care of it at home with superglue."


"Next time I will seriously, seriously tell them no shots. My god!"

"I know. Been like that my whole life."

Now he's got a lovely gauze wrapped hand that he carries elevated at all times, like an indian saying,"How!" Even when he's sleeping, he's still saying,"How!"

So, that was my friday night. How was yours?