Catholic and Loving it!

The following story is not for the sqeamish. Do not read this while standing up or eating. Have a glass of water by your side. I am typing this with one hand. It is taking ages, but I have ages because I'm not really able to do anything.

Our story begins with Mark and Monica, our friends in Italy who are to be married this weekend. We were due to go out to Italy for the wedding but due to reasons that are best described as "there are three of us managing on a single paltry northern income" we decided that it was not financially viable. We had the choice a while back between being people who can afford a car and trips to Italy or being people with a baby. We went with the baby and it was the right choice.

So, Mark and Monica are getting married and I decide to use my novice wood carving skills to carve them a wedding present. You don't really save money doing this, oak is not cheap and the piece I sourced (you don't 'buy' wood, you 'source' it) costs more than a toaster. Oh, and it takes ages to do. Anyway I thought it would be nice to do this wood carving (I'm not going to say too much about it so there's at least a bit of suspense) because it would be a bit more personal than a toaster and Ella prefers me to carve gifts because it means she doesn't end up with a house full of wood. Like I said, it takes ages and yesterday I was just finishing it off.

It was about 3pm and I had just made Leona a cheese sandwich for lunch. She was having a late lunch because she had slept a very long time that morning and I hadn't woke her so I could get on with my carving. While she sat in the high chair and munched away in the next room I thought I'd have a cup of tea and I decided to just scrape a couple more slithers off the wood while the kettle boiled.

I don't really remember what happened next. I was pushing the chisel through the wood when something slipped and the chisel slipped off and slammed in to my right hand. I was using a 'V' tool and one of the upper parts of the 'V' shape cut a line about an inch and a half long and really deep. Now, you have to remember here that I'm not prone to exaggeration, I'm a man who goes to see an all time classic film and then describes it as 'alright'. The cut was an inch long, it was deep. I could see parts of the inside of my hand that no man is supposed to see. Yellow parts (fat) and stringly parts (veins and tendons).

The body is remarkably good at dealing with this kind of situation, I looked at my hand and it looked fake. Like plasticine. It didn't really hurt (adrenaline) but I figured I would probably need to go to the hospital. My first thought was not "Aaarrrghh, my hand! my hand!" as you might expect but annoyance. I was really really annoyed that I was going to have to go to the hospital. Pretty soon it started to well up with blood. In hindsight it was less blood than you would expect for such a hole but I recognised the need for something to soak it up. We have no kitchen roll left (I was carving in the kitchen) and so I made my was to the dining room and did my best not to let Leona see as I ruined the table cloth and got some kleenex. I was a bit worried the tissue would stick but what choice did I have?

Usually when I nick myself there's a little blood and when it's wiped up the wound is blood free until a little more blood seeps in. There was no seeping here. As quick as I soaked tissues in blood more blood came and more tissues were required. I got to the phone and had the shortest phone call I've ever had with Ella's mum. "Do you have the car?" "Can you come and take me to the hospital I've cut my hand very badly" "Thanks, see you soon!". Ella's mum know my penchant for understating things so she knew it must be bad. She didn't give me any of that "Are you sure it needs the hospital, put a plaster on it" nonsense. She got in the car with Ella and they set off immediately.

Meanwhile it was clear I needed to do more than grip kleenex and hold my hand in the air. I ran upstairs and got the medical box from which I took some steri-strips. James' top tip for everybody: Get some steri-strips. They are not cheap but they are amazing. They are what doctors use in place of stitches on medium sized cuts. They are duck tape for the body.

Of course, to use steri-strips you need scissors and our medical box has scissors but blow me down if I could find them. I ended up grabbing some of Ella's craft scissors which were visibly grubby but again, what choice did I have? I used the steri-strips to hold the flaps of skin together. This was trickier than it sounds because I was working one handed and because the inside of my hand is made of mush so the flaps of skin were folding in on themselves. I can only describe it as trying to use one hand to tape together two sheets of floppy soggy paper which are floating on thick custard. I had to use the stickyness of the steri-strips to lift the skin out so I could line it up and tape it together. Have I mentioned that all the while I was doing this, I was also trying to kep on top of the blood flow and that steri-strips, awesome as they are, don't stick too well to blood.

I got there in the end though and it really did help slow the flow, but the adrenaline was starting to wear off. Where was Ella's mum and the car? Leona was calling so I went in with my now much cleaner hand and explained what had happened. I don't think she understood a word I was saying, I had a sudden urge for a glass of water, I got in the kitchen and suddenly was feeling feint so I sat on the floor, head between my knees. I felt better so I had a drink and felt better still. I kept my hand high above my head for a while and then decided in the interests of speed to get Leona in the car seat. I don't know how I did it, I lifted her using my arms and no hands and she was cooperative.

Finally, Ella came to the door. I hopped in her mum's car and we were on our way to Hull Royal. Ella's mum dropped us off at A&E while she kindly took Leona home to look after her. The service at A&E was very good, the lady at reception was talking to somebody else but as soon as she saw me she immediately ended the conversation and came to my aid. I was lead in to a small room where a nurse did the whole 'can you bend your fingers?' thing and then sent me for an x-ray with a form that said 'severe laceration'. They did the whole 'can you bend your fingers?' thing again. Every time they bent my fingers the whole wound went funny and sort of slid around inside. I wish they would tell each other that they already did it. I was zapped with gamma radiation and they established that my bones had escaped unscathed.

Then, we waited. I was to see the doctor and the doctor was busy. Now things took a while but eventually I was called in and, yes, he did the 'can you bend your fingers?' thing. He made me open and close my fist which felt like squelching a handful of grapes. Ewww. He felt around inside my hand with his little finger and then, well, then things went a bit Monty Python.

The doctor went over the corridor to have a discreet talk with one of the nurses about my hand, only she clearly wasn't aware that I was stood five feet away because she loudly said things like "No! Don't make it worse!" and then explained to him how to set about fixing my wound. You need to 'explore' it, she said. So he came back with some tools and had a poke around inside. Then he went back and asked what to do next, she told him to wash it and then put some stitches in.

He put a paper blanket over me which I commented was 'very star wars' which it was but he laughed awkwardly like a man in trouble. Then he took a syringe and injected me six times with something to numb my hand. They were the six most painful injections of my life, I think because of how tough the skin on the palm is. Next he used a syringe minus the needle to squirt huge quantities of sterilised water in to my wound until he was satisfied it was clean.

The stitches came next, the nurse handed the doctor a sewing kit thing and said "are you okay" and he said "um, er, yes". I have seven stitches in my hand, but two of them are right on top of each other so it's a six stitch wound really. The little half moon sewing needle thing passed through my hand nine times. The first time, the doctor pulled the needle through and then so far away that all the thread followed after. I used to make that mistake sewing badges on my scout uniform. On another occasion he put the needle through too close to the wound and when he tightened the knot the string just tore through my skin and came away. Fun and games. Towards the end the anti-pain stuff started to wear off and I was weighing up in my head whether to mention it and have another six painful injections or just to endure the pain of the last few stitches. I went with endurance and it hurt like hell, but on reflection, I think it hurt less than the injections.

He tested the wound a little by poking and squeezing it and as he did so yellow fat squirted out between the stitches. Then I was bandaged up and sent on my way. As I was leaving the nurse explained that I had had 'minor surgery' on my hand and advised me not to get it wet, lift anything or risk taking it to work. Ella's dad took picked us up and took us all out for a meal to celebrate Ella's brother's GCSE results which were really good. I had pizza because you can eat pizza with one hand.

I've been off since then, bored out of my head unable to blog, unable to play computer games, unable to do much really. Writing this blog entry one handed has taken so long that I went back to work yesterday and this morning the stitches are coming out. I'll let you know how I get on.