Me Vs. The Can

Sounds like I battled a toilet...

specifically, it was a can of chicken...or as I shall now think of it....

 THE CAN OF DOOM.

the setting: my kitchen
the time: Saturday evening, about 5pm
the cast: myself

After a busy of day of visiting with family and running errands all over God's glorious creation, I decided we'd have leftovers for dinner.  The night before, I had prepared the tasty chicken and dumplings recipe, which makes a lot.

I dumped the contents of one of my leftover containers into the pot on the stove top. I added some chicken stock to it. Hmmm, I thought to myself, this needs a little something extra. I got out the frozen peas and tossed them in.  Hmmm, I thought to myself again, this could use a little something more... I know! I'll add some canned chicken. Yum!

I got the canned chicken out of the pantry, and tried to open it with the very nice electric can opener that Steve got me. No luck.  Ok...so I got out the very crappy manual can opener that is so crappy, I bent it the first time I used it...I got the can about half open.  No problem, I thought to myself. Clearly I am a super human, not made of mere flesh and bone, but rather steel...I'll use my bare hands to rip this can apart. This is a good idea!

*crickets chirping*

I know you'll be shocked by the twist in this story, but about 2 seconds after I tried to rip the lid off the can, my hand slipped, and I gave myself a good gash.

Immediately, I rinsed my hand off, grabbed a paper towel, applied hard pressure, and put my hand over my head.

This is essentially the position I was in for the next 30 minutes.

My grandmother was on the phone with my mom when this happened, so I went in and got the phone from her.  The following conversation was amusing in hindsight, and involved me suggesting I get a ruler out to measure the wound to see if I would need stitches, etc... but all agreed I should keep pressure on it until Steve got home and could look at it.

He got home, and said I'd probably need stitches. He may have griped at me. I may have retorted that I didn't need a lecture because I was acutely aware of how stupid I'd been, and was already suffering my consequence.  He called Care Now to make sure they did stitches (they did), masking taped the paper towel to my hand so I could drive myself over, and off I went.  The rest of the family stayed home because it was dinner time...and so they were able to enjoy the dinner that I had in fact bled over (but not on, thank goodness)

(as a side note, my grandmother, at whom I had spent most of the day griping at to stay out of bed, went into quite the tizzy when she saw how I'd hurt myself, and was most keen on trying to help. i assured her i would live, and while i appreciated her offer, really really did not need her to do anything)

At Care Now, everyone was super nice and good at their jobs. First, they made me soak my hand in an anti-bacterial solution. "It will sting at first, and then it will go away" they said. Lies! All lies!  Then, the lidocaine shot in my hand to numb it...EXCRUCIATING...finally, relief... I was able to watch the PA stitch me up with no problems. I got 6 stitches using the blue material - she thought it would look nicer than the black...Then, I got a tetanus shot. The fun continued!

I wasn't able to get any medicine last night, but today I started my antibiotic, and got my pain pills - which  don't seem to be doing much, so when it's time for the next dose, I'm going back to tylenol.

So...what a lovely way to spend an evening.

Things that are hard to do with my left hand...eat soup with a spoon, brush my hair, stir food in a pan...

Things I cannot do today...put my hair in a ponytail, chop anything with a knife...

I go back tonight to have them look it over, and then again in 10 days to have the stitches taken out.