You never know what a day will bring...

So we had kind of an interesting week here on The Farm.

Tuesday morning, The Farmer was up bright and early and out the door, unbeknownst to me. I was still in bed, due to a dose of Benadryl I had taken the night before, when the phone rang.

Embarrassed to be caught still sleeping and fuzzy-headed, I was surprised to hear The Farmer. And he was saying, “I think I need some help.”

Okay…like you need me to pull you out from being stuck? You need me to hold a board in position? And why are you calling me?

“I cut off the end of my finger.”

Oh…

WHAT????

The adrenaline that kicked in was not quite enough to erase the Benadryl fuzziness from my head, and I had to have him repeat where he was and what had happened.

He was picking up a trailer with which to haul rocks that he planned to dig out of the field that day. The trailer had a ball hitch, and was not quite lined up with the ball on the pickup. The Farmer used both hands to push the trailer to line up over the ball when it suddenly lined up and dropped down. His left pinky just happened to be close enough to be grabbed and pinched between the ball and the hitch.

It was one of those, “Did that really just happen?” moments. But there was the proof, The Farmer saw the finger of his glove laying on the ground, and his finger was missing a fairly large piece.

And it hurt, and there was blood.

I know he wanted me to say that The Doc in town could probably sew it back together, because he was already driving that direction when he called. But it sounded like an ER wound to me.

He wasn’t happy to hear that.

So we headed to The Doc to see if maybe, just maybe, we didn’t have to spend the day at the ER. He didn’t want to lose a whole day of work just to get his finger fixed. Oh, he was disgusted with himself!

When The Doc uncovered the wound, so nicely wrapped in a dirty shop towel, it was obvious that we would be going to the ER, and probably to a plastic surgeon. There just wasn’t enough to work with when it came to stitching and covering the wound. (I could show you the pictures and prove it, but I will be kind to my readers in spite of my fascination with such a spectacular wound...It was like being in our own personal ER show!!) The Farmer had the missing piece, still in the finger of his glove, in his shirt pocket, but even that would take some fancy stitching to put back on…if it even could be re-attached. We were doubtful.

The Doc wrapped the wound up nicely, and sent us on. The Farmer was ready to drive to the ER on his own, {insert throwing of hands into the air} but was told by his bossy wife that it wasn’t going to happen that way…And on the way to ER, his adrenaline plummeted, and he didn’t feel so good, and I triumphantly told him, “And THAT”S why you don’t drive yourself to the ER.”

It was a moment, I tell you! {insert savoring of being right for once}

And then ensued the typical ER visit that involves much waiting interspersed with brief visits from medical personnel. In our first interaction with them, we told them that we had the missing piece if that was of any use to them. The nurse was tasked with cutting open the glove and putting the…uh…piece in saline solution. It was surprisingly intact – just pinched off, not crushed.

Over the course of the next five hours, the doctor came in and anesthetized the finger, which made waiting much less problematic. Then an x-ray was taken, from which we learned that the bone was not fractured, just a little shaved off. Further examination revealed that the bone was exposed and in danger of drying out during healing. And that was when we became so grateful that The Farmer took that glove finger and its contents with him. They decided to stitch it back on as a “biological dressing”. It would keep the bone covered in a state most conducive to healing.

A PA came in and did the stitching, which was very interesting to watch. She stitched through tough callouses of The Farmer’s hand, and even through the nail. By the time she finished, it actually looked like a finger again! I was amazed.

They sent us home with antibiotics and pain meds, and warned that nighttime would likely be pretty uncomfortable. By then, the block they had put in the finger would wear off, and the throbbing commence. We took heed of their advice about when to take pain meds, and must have done pretty well, because The Farmer slept a good many hours that night.

The next day, we saw the plastic surgeon who said we had a couple of weeks ahead of compression bandaging to encourage the pieces to meld. He warned us that the fingertip would turn black, and most of what was sewn back on would die, but hopefully, new skin would be growing underneath.

Fortunately, the pain has not been as bad as was expected. We changed the bandage as instructed, and indeed, the fingertip is now black, but the nail is mostly pink so that bodes well. The Farmer is back to normal activity, just having to be careful about bumping that finger (OUCH!), and keeping it above his heart when it starts to throb.

His rock-picking project got cancelled. {Let it go, let it go!} The Farmer finally got over his disgust about this annoying interruption to his work week. And I am just thankful that it was only that – annoying. It was a reminder once again how things can change in a split second; and how close we often are, in our mundane activities, to having a really bad day.

You’ll find us grateful for the uneventful for some time to come.