What the?? Was that summer that just flew past my face?

In case you were all dying to know: Yes, summer kicked my trash. No I didn't quit running or cooking, but man, did it seem iffy for a while. Let me update you.

At the end of June, Nate and I (together with some friends and family) finally took the adventurous Grand Canyon trip, in which we hiked rim to rim in one day. That story is dramatic and insane so it will be getting it's very own blog post after this one. Two days after that I was still sore, tired, and traumatized. I blame that condition for what happened next. I slammed my finger (yes, I slammed my very own finger) in the car door. As in the car door shut violently with my finger sticking out the side. To this day I don't even know how it happened. Please be advised that the following story contains both graphic descriptions and photos of the injury. Read at your own risk.

The finger burst open and the bone fractured in 3 places. Check out the tip of your ring finger. See how small it is from the top joint to the tip? That's where my bone fractured in 3 places. It sucked. I screamed and stood there for a full 30 seconds. I was holding my 22 month old who also started screaming. My 8 year old then started screaming, "Mom, what's wrong, what happened?" I couldn't speak. In fact, I couldn't even think what to do. It was pain like I'd never known. Finally I came to myself and realized I'd have to put the kid down and open the door. That's right, my finger was still in the door.

At that point I was crying and walking toward the house when the 8 year old saw the blood and went running. Crying himself, he swiftly brought me back.....a tissue. So sweet. So completely insufficient. I could see chunks of the fatty finger pad coming out of the wound. A tissue just wasn't going to cut it. I asked for a wet rag and some ice. Oh, and son? The phone.  After failing to reach the obvious options (Nate and my mother who lives 4 houses away) I proceeded to call everyone I could think of in my neighborhood. Two people were home. Both were sick. I finally got a hold of someone who happened to have a teen home so they could watch my kids (Thank you Sandy and Cassie!) She drove me to the ER, and all the while I thought I might pass out from the pain. Why was I so woozy? Oh yeah, I was too tired that morning to eat breakfast. But guess what? My muscles weren't sore anymore from the Grand Canyon, go figure.

When I arrived at the ER sporting my wet rag, jammies, and flip flops, I was greeted with no one. What the? People! I am BLEEDING! Oh there she is, feeding the fish in the lobby. I said, "Excuse me, I am in need of some medical services for my finger. It's busted open. Also, I feel a little faint." She took one look at me, and hustled me right inside saying we'd take care of signing me in later. I got as far as the triage room before I felt that ominous heat in my face, and loss of strength in my limbs. Uh oh. I told them I didn't feel well, they said they'd get me a chair. I told them......I don't remember.  My oxygen level went from 99 to 38 in about 5 seconds. The next thing I remember is I was feeling much better and I was on a bed. I told them my finger hurt. They looked at me like I was speaking chinese.

Me after they finally cleaned and wrapped the thing. Yes that's a BP cuff and warming blankets. No you may not laugh.

I got to a room and I just remember sitting there so embarrassed. I just kept thinking. I did this. Me. To myself! I got what I can only imagine would have been a frantic phone call from my husband, since I'd left him a horrible text before I got to the hospital. All I could type out was "Heading to the ER". As you can imagine, he was not pleased. However, the grumpy doc wouldn't let me answer my phone, he was too worried about the possibility of losing the tip of my finger. I didn't care about my dang finger. It hurt too bad. All I wanted was a cracker. They wouldn't give me one. 

This was taken 2 days later in the cursed triage room at my infection check. I couldn't take any myself the day of and Nate refused to look at it. You can see why.

Nate arrived. I was Xrayed. The punk kid who came to get me came into my room with a wheel chair and said, "I was told I needed to bring a wheel chair for an X ray of a finger." Yeah, dude. I'm gonna give you a finger in a second. I told him I'd walk. what seemed like hours later (I was soooo hungry) they finally came in and told me the results. They literally gave me the whole good news, bad news routine.The good news was I didn't need surgery, the bad news was it was broken in several places. I don't care, I said, just give me a DA-- cracker! They complied. They really were a nice bunch of people once I charmed them with my sparkling personality. I was in a Percocet induced delirium for a week after that. It was 4 weeks before I could resume running. Do you see why I was a blog slacker?? Please forgive me and my ugly finger. I wasn't typing so well.

This is a few weeks later when it finally started to heal. The outer layer peeled off like a banana. The finger nail didn't come off for over 3 weeks.