Ouch. Holy f-ing ouch.

Rather than bring you all up to date on the progress we've made this weekend, I thought instead that I'd offer an extra, full length edition of everybody's favorite feature...

The Injury Report

The reason I'm doing this, of course is because we didn't MAKE any progress on the basement yesterday, but spent most of the day dealing with an injury. We'd only just gotten started when it happened, so yesterday wasn't terrifically productive. I think we'd managed to clean up all the sawdust and bits of wire the electricians had left, and had just started laying down foam for the sub-floor.

Warning: if you're really squeamish, you may not want to read the next paragraph. Just skip to the funny bits later. (Don't worry - I didn't take any pictures.)


I was cutting down a piece of rigid foam insulation to put on the floor of the closet, in preparation for covering it all up with a piece of plywood. I was using a metal square, holding it down against the foam with my left hand, and running a utility knife along the edge of the square to make a nice clean cut. Well, I guess I wasn't really paying enough attention, because my finger was overlapping the edge of the square by just a bit, and the knife pretty much sheared off a piece of my left index finger - right through the fingernail and everything.

Right away, it was pretty clear that I'd be needing medical attention for this one, and possibly some stitches. Of course, we knew that the emergency rooms at local hospitals would be insane on Saturdays and wouldn't have much time for a relatively minor wound like mine, so we figured the clinic was a safer bet. I couldn't do much, what with holding a piece of gory gauze tight around my finger, so the War Department got the truck all set and we headed up to the medical clinic at Cook and Quadra.

Well, they're closed on Saturdays (of course - why wouldn't they be?) so we headed up to the medical clinic at Broadmead instead. According to the sign on the door, they were closing at 1:00 today (it was about 1:20 at this point) due to "unforeseen circumstances" (read, "staffing problems"), but they had helpfully listed two nearby places one could seek medical attention. Victoria General was one of them, however, and we were determined that the ER would be a last resort. So we headed back across the highway to the clinic at Royal Oak Shopping Centre.

Keep in mind of course, that every time we got in or out of the truck, Amy had to fasten or unfasten my seatbelt and open and close my door for me. Not to mention that every bump in the road sent spikes of pain shooting through my hand. This was not an enjoyable weekend drive, by any means.

But we made it to the clinic at Royal Oak, and they also had a helpful sign on the door, this one indicating that they close at 1:00 on Saturdays. Not just this Saturday, though. All of them.

This was about the point that I invented new and exciting ways to use the word "fuck". I think I may have startled a couple of nearby blue-hairs with several of those new uses, though they may have been more shocked by the fact that Amy was also engaging in my etymological pursuits.

We were desperately aware that the emergency room was becoming our only option, so we stopped at a pay phone and Amy called a doctor friend of ours to ask for suggestions. He was actually willing to treat the injury himself, but didn't have the right supplies. He suggested that we go to the clinic in Esquimalt instead - assuring us that it was open until 4:00 - and confirmed that if we headed to the ER, we'd be in for close to a five hour wait.

So we trundled all the way across town to the Esquimalt clinic and pulled in to the completely empty parking lot with a deep sense of trepidation. To our surprise, the lot was empty because there were no patients waiting, and within three minutes of walking in the door, I was in the doctor's office.

Now, I can assure you that cutting off a sizable chunk of my finger was very, very painful. You can take my word for it. But I can also assure you that cutting off a piece of my finger was a minor annoyance compared to getting treatment for it.

He started by unwinding the blood-soaked gauze that I'd been clenching around my finger for the past hour or so.

That hurt quite a bit, but not as much as it hurt when he started dabbing gently at the wound to clear up some of the blood.

And of course, that didn't hurt nearly as much as when he squirted some local anesthetic over it.

While he was waiting for the anesthetic to kick in (it didn't), he told me about my options. Because a sizable chunk of flesh was missing, it was going to be difficult to give me any stitches, even if he went through the fingernail (a treatment he described as "rather painful").

Instead, he opted to use a pressure bandage of sorts to keep my finger tight up against my nail until the skin could start to regrow. First, however, he had to stop the bleeding. This meant dumping some freezing agent over my finger.

I thought the anesthetic was painful, but when he put the freezing stuff on, I think I saw Jesus for a second.

Then he cauterized the blood vessels with some silver nitrate, and I thought I WAS Jesus.

Then he loosened the tourniquet, and I knew that he was the devil and I was in hell.

Man, that hurt. Holy shit, that hurt like a son of a bitch. I can't believe how much that hurt. And this was after he'd numbed it.

So then he wrapped it up tight in a couple of butterfly band-aids, gave me some free samples of synthetic codeine (woo hoo!), and sent me on my way. I spent the rest of the afternoon lying on the couch holding my finger at an uncomfortable angle, and feeling sorry for myself. Amy cleaned up the basement and at one point brought me a little piece of finger with its bit of fingernail still attached. It was pretty weird, but we elected not to take a picture (you're welcome).

Anyway, it's taken me almost an hour to type this. Ironically, the part of my body I injured requires the one letter on the keyboard I have the most trouble with right now.

FFFFFFFinger.

Ouch.