Long post- but good story!!!

Well I haven't posted anything for the past couple of days because as you will come to understand by the end of this little story, typing has been rather difficult for me.

On Thursday I was working alone at the store. I think my last post was actually on Thursday... anyways, business was slow as usual so I thought I'd refill the frozen fruit tubs. I took out the bananas to slice them, and decided to forgo a cutting board since that just meant one extra thing I'd need to wash. So for like two or three minutes I was doing pretty well just slicing the frozen bananas with one hand, and holding them in the other. I must have gotten distracted by singing along to whatever song was playing at the moment, or maybe I just zoned out. I dunno. Anyways, the knife went straight through the banana, straight through my food gloves, and then gashed my finger- right at the joint. It hurt, but judging by the amount of pain I thought it would only be a cut. Once I noticed how much blood was dripping all over the counter and the checker-tiled floor, I whipped my gloves off and grabbed some paper towel, immediately wadding it around my hand and cursing out loud. Haha it might be funny to go back and look at the security camera footage of me freaking out... Anywho, I kept pressure on it for about a minute or so, then released my grip and lifted up the paper towel, only to witness a fresh billow of blood come streaming out and all over the floor again. It was nuts. I got some more paper towel and held it down on my finger, then whilst keeping my arm above my head I attempted to clean up the mess I'd made everywhere. Then a customer walked in. A guy. I was like, "I'm sorry. I can't really help you with anything at the moment, I cut my figure and I'm waiting for it to stop bleeding."

Then he said, "Woah, okay. Well I'm a doctor."

I said, "Oh really?! Oh man. You wanna take a quick look? I just want to know if I'm going to need stitches or not." So I put out my hand for him on the counter and lifted off the dressing. It bleed out some more and then I quickly covered it up.

He told me, "I dunno. It looks pretty deep. Either way it'll need to be cleaned out really well. Are you working all by yourself?" I explained to him that I was alone, and it had been bleeding for about five minutes but I wasn't sure if I should call my boss yet. He said if it doesn't stop bleeding in ten minutes then go to the hospital. So I called Tulan, she said she'd be there soon, and then I called my mom, who was all like ohmygod ohmygod I'll be right there. While I was waiting for Tulan to relieve me and my mom to arrive, there were like six other customers who showed up, and I had to promptly shoo them out of the store because I didn't want them to see how much blood was behind the counter. Once I was finally out of the store and in the car with my mom she took me to the her friend Patty's house. Patty is a nurse, and her husband George is a pathologist. One of their daughters, Hannah, was my best friend for several years but we don't talk that much anymore so I was anxious about showing up at their house after so many years, but there was no awkwardness. Hannah is taking a semester off from college too! She was home! She said she didn't like Tech and wanted to transfer somewhere else, and we bonded over being such misfit students while Patty and George perused my finger. By now it had stopped bleeding, but the wound was still pretty deep, and according to Hannah's parents, it needed to sewn up soon since it was right on a joint.

George was like, "Allow me to fetch my supplies!"

For a minute I thought he was serious and I went totally white but then Hannah said he was just kidding. "Dad, we'd never let you stitch Eliza up." Then he said that he does sutures every day and Hannah was like, "Yeah, Dad... on dead people."

We came home, my mom turned me over to my Dad (he's better in emergencies), and we drove over to the Beth Israel ER. The whole hospital experience was like a really quirky, messed up dream. We were there for four and half hours, and most of the time was spent in a little hospital bed being attended to by a crazy cast of health care providers. There was Triage Nurse Lady, who, upon first examining my finger said, "Oooh, yummy!" Then there was Twelve-Year-Old Technician Boy who cleaned my finger for me and showed me an almost IDENTICAL laceration he had on his finger from moving boxes in his apartment. Then there was the guy who stitched me up. I call him, Smug Shaky Handed Needle Guy. He prefaced the procedure by assuring me that he was the best resident in the program. "Not to sound arrogant," he said, "but I'm definitely the best doctor you could have gotten today." I asked him if he would use Lidocaine as a local anesthetic on my finger and and he sort of gave me a weird look. "Yeah... how did you know?" I felt funny telling him I was interested in medicine because doctors are always trying to talk you out of being pre-med or whatever. So I just said I knew because I'd had stitches before- which is true actually. I get hurt a lot. I told him this and he raised his eyebrows. "So you're a naughty girl?" Um, what? I was too embarrassed and confused to even begin thinking of a response to this question so I just laughed at him and how stupid he sounded. He injected the Lidocaine in almost a dozen different spots around the wound, which felt like hell itself, but by the time he started suturing I could totally relax because my finger was so numb it might as well have been a limp sausage. Let me just say, THANK GOD I couldn't feel any thing because Smug Shaky Handed Needle Guy can't sew for shit. He would poke the needle through one side of skin, but kept having trouble getting a good poke though the other side. He kept poking and re-poking to the point until my finger was bleeding more than it was when I'd cut myself in the first place, and then by the time he was done he'd gotten so much blood on my jeans I wanted to yell, "Look what you've done you insufferable little lab coat!" Then his attending came in to look at his work so I made good and sure that he saw what messy job his little resident boy had done.

So here I am, four stitches and a bottle of Motrin later. I have to see someone next week to remove the stitches and then I need to see a hand specialist. The End.