The other week, I was making breakfast for Addie which involves blending fresh fruit for her oatmeal. We use an immersion blender in this house, it's smaller and less mess than a regular blender, and it's awesome for making salad dressings, soups, and smoothies. I didn't cut the chunks of nectarine small enough this time, and a large piece wasn't getting blended because it was stuck behind the blades. So what does Ariel the Genius do? She keeps holding the blender in her right hand with her finger poised right over the "on" button while she fishes out the fruit with her left hand. In a split second, she turn on the blender and there's blood and nectarine splattered along the walls and the ceiling. I avoided looking for pieces of my finger amongst the chunks of bloody fruit littering the counter.
Luckily, it looked (and FELT) a lot worse than it actually was. I called out to Zach in between the OW, OW, OW,
"Hey, can you come here? I hurt myself." OW, OW, OW.
"I'm in the bathroom. What happened?"
OW, OW, OW. "Yeah, can you PLEASE come here? I cut myself on the blender." OW OW OW
This is not really an unusual occurrence. Zach always says I'm an accident waiting to happen, and he's never that surprised when I've scraped or burned or dismembered myself. I could come running toward him, a headless body with blood spewing out of my gaping neck, and he would just sigh, go find my head, and stitch it back on. In fact, his friend nicknamed him Dr. Prague, for his efficient and calm bedside manner while healing his various injured friends, and the fact that he used to live in the Czech Republic.
He sorta freaked out when he saw my finger this time. Something about reminding him of the time he stuck his own hand in a traditional blender, hit the "on" button, and sliced his (left!) hand up. We're a match made in heaven. So while Addie is waiting patiently in the living room for her breakfast, we're standing in the kitchen spazzing out about whether I should go to a doctor, where we should go, the fact that I don't even have health insurance, and do we bring Addie with us to the germ-infested hospital. All the while my finger is throbbing and there's blood soaking through the kitchen towel. Luckily, my awesome friend who lives a minute away said she would watch Addie, then she directed the two headless chickens known as her parents to the nearest hospital.
Surprisingly, we lucked out and the ER was very slow that morning. The doctor heard my story, laughed, took a look, and said we would take some X-rays and put a few sutures in.
"Uh, Doc? I don't have health insurance. And I have a baby to get back to very soon. Hint, hint."
"Ok, let's just put some derma-bond on the cuts then and wrap 'er up!"
Ah, our healthcare system.
My finger is fine now, just raw and a little numb from some nerve damage. Half my fingernail is barely hanging on by a piece of skin, and I keep trying to rip it off because I'm a masochist who picks and peels and bites things so they stay raw and painful. I know, it's gross. I cannot leave well enough alone (and I just revealed to the Internet that I behave like a dog. Awesome).
What's the lesson in all this? Having babies is really dangerous.
No, I am not on drugs here.
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