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I never did learn history.
I now present to you two true, oddly similar tales of knives, ER visits, and blood.
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Story the First:
My mom is a big fan of the Academy Awards. Every year she picks a theme and makes dozens upon dozens of appetizers suiting it to graze on throughout the pre-show, show, and post-show. One year, back when I was in high school, the theme was something Mexican, and after hours of toiling in the kitchen, she was finishing up with some simple guacamole. Erik and I were lounging in the living room, reporting on the frocks of the early arrivals. After one particularly hard thwock, Mom called, "Guys? I think we need to go to the hospital."
We kind of chuckled.
"Not kidding," she added.
At that point, I scrambled up and towards the kitchen. She was clutching a blue kitchen rag to her hand. It was already saturated with blood.
"Jesus Christ!" I said. "What the fuck did you do?"
She told me (in snippets as we threw on shoes and twisted all the kitchen knobs to 'off') that she'd meant to remove an avocado pit by smacking her knife into it and pulling it out. Standard procedure for her, apparently. What happened instead was that the knife hit the pit, glanced off, and lodged itself neatly at the base of her thumb.
"I can try to drive," I said, but she looked at me agog and more pale that she'd been immediately post-attempted-amputation.
"Are you crazy?" she said. "You don't have a license, and I want to live."
I still think she should've let me drive. I couldn't have possibly done worse than her woozy weaving. To her credit, she kept her hands at ten and two. The problem was that the one at ten was still wrapped in a kitchen rag and may or may not have been actively drooling blood in pulses.
By the time we got to the emergency room, the flow of blood was slower but still going strong, so we were ushered back pretty much immediately. Erik sat on the hospital bed and I took a chair next to my mom. We started laughing. "I'm not sure what's so funny about this," Mom hmphed.
"Now we get to watch you at the doctor's!" Erik said, tipsy with glee.
I nodded. "And an avocado pit out-maneuvered you."
Mom still seemed unconvinced of the humor.
"Trust me," I said. "It's funny."
Pressure helped the blood flow slow to almost nothing, and a doctor came to her aid not much later. It took two injections to get her thumb numb - a fact we discovered when the doctor's first attempt at stitching was met with a sharp cry of "It's not numb!" - before the doctor could start closing the wound. Everything went pretty smoothly up until the last stitch, during which I heard a small pop.
"Uh oh," the doctor said. "I think I nicked a little artery."
She pulled back her hand to reveal a small fountain of blood arcing in spurts out of the unstitched end of the cut.
"Yep," she sighed. "I nicked a little artery."
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Story the Second:
"What was that?" I holler.
"Um. I dropped a knife."
"Are you okay?"
"I think I might need to go to the hospital."
"What happened?" I jump up and round the corner into the kitchen to see a large knife on the floor and Jaime nonchalantly standing with his right hand clasped tight at the base of his left thumb. I ask, "Can I see?"
He winces. "I'm kind of holding it closed."
"Okay," I say, "We're going. Let me see it."
He moves his hand briefly and the skin yawns open. It's so deep that it's still drawing apart when I pivot on my heel and run for the first aid kit. (Later, waiting restlessly while the Donner Party unravels on the hospital TV, Jaime tells me, tense with contained excitement, "I think I saw bone.")
I manage to slap a gauze pad over the wound and wrap it up tight with meditape without him losing too much blood. It holds the entire trip to the hospital, at least. Since he's not gushing blood, we end up waiting a long time, though not all at once - it's split in several chunks, all long enough to be tedious but too short to really complain about. The only time the wait really matters is after we're back at a bed and he's had his tetanus shot delivered and the thumb numbed. The doctor (who's intentionally funny, which is a nice switch from last time, I have to say) had inspected his wound after it was numbed a bit. This must've loosened up some clots, because after a few minutes, Jaime says, "Hey. It's bleeding."
I look over. Sure enough, I can see a stripe of blood down his palm. "She was messing with a lot. It makes sense."
"Yeah." He doesn't settle down though, just shifts awkwardly for a beat, then says, "Can you get someone? It's kind of bleeding a lot."
This time, I get up and loop to the other side of the bed for a closer look. The stripe I saw is actually a stream, pulsing out of the cut, and there's a steadily growing pool of blood enveloping the recessed surface of the table beneath his hand.
I exhale. "Be back in a sec."
I have to round to another row of beds to find a nurse, but the quest is successful, and she cleans up the blood, sets up a barrier to contain any further flow, and drops a piece of gauze over his hand before disappearing in a possibly-exhaustion-induced-hallucinatory puff of sparkle. I wish I had magical powers. Then I could clean as fast as her.
The actual stitching goes just fine - no nicked blood vessels - and another nurse fits him with a splint to hold the joint immobile so the cut can heal nicely. We then find ourselves locked into the last and worst wait - discharge instructions. Freedom's so close you can taste it, but no. You get to wait. And since the trauma is done, you're not a priority. It's the wait of unpredictable length.
A few minutes into it, Jaime caves and goes to the bathroom. Which is, of course, when the nurse shows up with the paperwork.
At least they let me sign it all in his stead.
--------
And that is how Jaime came to have five stitches in his hand and a soon-to-be-scar that matches my mom's. Oh, life. So full of mystery and wonder. You saucy minx.
Since I'm here anyway, I'll throw out a couple things I've been meaning to link to but didn't feel like writing an entire post about:
I'm actually into an RPS ship. I know, I know! I'm not sure how it happened either. Anyway, it's... ahem... Kris/Adam, and I need, I say, need to throw a couple recs out there:
More Myself with You - the oddly plausible epic that made me upgrade from "toying with the idea" to "full-fledged shipper"
The Devilstone Registry - the steampunk-y AU that you really don't need to know the fandom to enjoy
If It Kills Me - the non-AU fic that unexpectedly leapt into one of my favorite genres (spoiler: survival, omg YES)
As a complete 180 from all that, I also need to rec Marble Hornets for being well-made and esoteric and creepy as fuck. Go to the wiki's list of the entries and scroll down immediately to the suggested viewing order. Don't read any summaries or anything - just watch the videos in that order. It will destroy you. Fair warning: I am not joking about the creepy as fuck part. It is NOT for the meek. Don't blame me for any resulting nightmares or paranoia.
On that note, I think I'll go read fluff and try to get some sleep before my (AUGH) meeting tomorrow morning. Wish me luck, folks.
-------
Story the First:
My mom is a big fan of the Academy Awards. Every year she picks a theme and makes dozens upon dozens of appetizers suiting it to graze on throughout the pre-show, show, and post-show. One year, back when I was in high school, the theme was something Mexican, and after hours of toiling in the kitchen, she was finishing up with some simple guacamole. Erik and I were lounging in the living room, reporting on the frocks of the early arrivals. After one particularly hard thwock, Mom called, "Guys? I think we need to go to the hospital."
We kind of chuckled.
"Not kidding," she added.
At that point, I scrambled up and towards the kitchen. She was clutching a blue kitchen rag to her hand. It was already saturated with blood.
"Jesus Christ!" I said. "What the fuck did you do?"
She told me (in snippets as we threw on shoes and twisted all the kitchen knobs to 'off') that she'd meant to remove an avocado pit by smacking her knife into it and pulling it out. Standard procedure for her, apparently. What happened instead was that the knife hit the pit, glanced off, and lodged itself neatly at the base of her thumb.
"I can try to drive," I said, but she looked at me agog and more pale that she'd been immediately post-attempted-amputation.
"Are you crazy?" she said. "You don't have a license, and I want to live."
I still think she should've let me drive. I couldn't have possibly done worse than her woozy weaving. To her credit, she kept her hands at ten and two. The problem was that the one at ten was still wrapped in a kitchen rag and may or may not have been actively drooling blood in pulses.
By the time we got to the emergency room, the flow of blood was slower but still going strong, so we were ushered back pretty much immediately. Erik sat on the hospital bed and I took a chair next to my mom. We started laughing. "I'm not sure what's so funny about this," Mom hmphed.
"Now we get to watch you at the doctor's!" Erik said, tipsy with glee.
I nodded. "And an avocado pit out-maneuvered you."
Mom still seemed unconvinced of the humor.
"Trust me," I said. "It's funny."
Pressure helped the blood flow slow to almost nothing, and a doctor came to her aid not much later. It took two injections to get her thumb numb - a fact we discovered when the doctor's first attempt at stitching was met with a sharp cry of "It's not numb!" - before the doctor could start closing the wound. Everything went pretty smoothly up until the last stitch, during which I heard a small pop.
"Uh oh," the doctor said. "I think I nicked a little artery."
She pulled back her hand to reveal a small fountain of blood arcing in spurts out of the unstitched end of the cut.
"Yep," she sighed. "I nicked a little artery."
--------
Story the Second:
"What was that?" I holler.
"Um. I dropped a knife."
"Are you okay?"
"I think I might need to go to the hospital."
"What happened?" I jump up and round the corner into the kitchen to see a large knife on the floor and Jaime nonchalantly standing with his right hand clasped tight at the base of his left thumb. I ask, "Can I see?"
He winces. "I'm kind of holding it closed."
"Okay," I say, "We're going. Let me see it."
He moves his hand briefly and the skin yawns open. It's so deep that it's still drawing apart when I pivot on my heel and run for the first aid kit. (Later, waiting restlessly while the Donner Party unravels on the hospital TV, Jaime tells me, tense with contained excitement, "I think I saw bone.")
I manage to slap a gauze pad over the wound and wrap it up tight with meditape without him losing too much blood. It holds the entire trip to the hospital, at least. Since he's not gushing blood, we end up waiting a long time, though not all at once - it's split in several chunks, all long enough to be tedious but too short to really complain about. The only time the wait really matters is after we're back at a bed and he's had his tetanus shot delivered and the thumb numbed. The doctor (who's intentionally funny, which is a nice switch from last time, I have to say) had inspected his wound after it was numbed a bit. This must've loosened up some clots, because after a few minutes, Jaime says, "Hey. It's bleeding."
I look over. Sure enough, I can see a stripe of blood down his palm. "She was messing with a lot. It makes sense."
"Yeah." He doesn't settle down though, just shifts awkwardly for a beat, then says, "Can you get someone? It's kind of bleeding a lot."
This time, I get up and loop to the other side of the bed for a closer look. The stripe I saw is actually a stream, pulsing out of the cut, and there's a steadily growing pool of blood enveloping the recessed surface of the table beneath his hand.
I exhale. "Be back in a sec."
I have to round to another row of beds to find a nurse, but the quest is successful, and she cleans up the blood, sets up a barrier to contain any further flow, and drops a piece of gauze over his hand before disappearing in a possibly-exhaustion-induced-hallucinatory puff of sparkle. I wish I had magical powers. Then I could clean as fast as her.
The actual stitching goes just fine - no nicked blood vessels - and another nurse fits him with a splint to hold the joint immobile so the cut can heal nicely. We then find ourselves locked into the last and worst wait - discharge instructions. Freedom's so close you can taste it, but no. You get to wait. And since the trauma is done, you're not a priority. It's the wait of unpredictable length.
A few minutes into it, Jaime caves and goes to the bathroom. Which is, of course, when the nurse shows up with the paperwork.
At least they let me sign it all in his stead.
--------
And that is how Jaime came to have five stitches in his hand and a soon-to-be-scar that matches my mom's. Oh, life. So full of mystery and wonder. You saucy minx.
Since I'm here anyway, I'll throw out a couple things I've been meaning to link to but didn't feel like writing an entire post about:
I'm actually into an RPS ship. I know, I know! I'm not sure how it happened either. Anyway, it's... ahem... Kris/Adam, and I need, I say, need to throw a couple recs out there:
More Myself with You - the oddly plausible epic that made me upgrade from "toying with the idea" to "full-fledged shipper"
The Devilstone Registry - the steampunk-y AU that you really don't need to know the fandom to enjoy
If It Kills Me - the non-AU fic that unexpectedly leapt into one of my favorite genres (spoiler: survival, omg YES)
As a complete 180 from all that, I also need to rec Marble Hornets for being well-made and esoteric and creepy as fuck. Go to the wiki's list of the entries and scroll down immediately to the suggested viewing order. Don't read any summaries or anything - just watch the videos in that order. It will destroy you. Fair warning: I am not joking about the creepy as fuck part. It is NOT for the meek. Don't blame me for any resulting nightmares or paranoia.
On that note, I think I'll go read fluff and try to get some sleep before my (AUGH) meeting tomorrow morning. Wish me luck, folks.