Cutting edge blog material

Last week, I had an all 'round stinky day. It was a stinky day in a series of weeks of stinky days. There were plenty of wonderful moments in there to more than make up for the stink, but they were quite stinky nonetheless. There were dozens of little things that went wrong and I won't bore you with the details, but rest assured, it was unpleasant.

Chris comes home every evening and asks, "How was your day?" and I almost always respond, "Great! How was yours?" Last night, I told him to sit down. I went through the list and he completely understood when I told him that dinner was on the stove and I would be in the tub with a glass of wine and a good book. I wanted a safe, happy place where nothing else could go wrong.

I settled into a hot, oily bubble bath and started reading about the siege of Acre when Sarah popped in to say hi. Then she popped in to brush her teeth. Then she popped in to say she loved me. She left and I settled back in. King Philippe threatened to leave the Crusade before Jerusalem was captured and King Richard was none too happy 'bout that. Then Honor popped in to say hi. She wanted to brush her teeth, too. Honor (my list maker) was hosting a contest to see which one of her parents said, "I love you" the most that evening. She wanted to give me an advantage in the game. Chris soon caught on. "Mama is winning by 17? Wait, when did you talk to Mama? Mama is taking an "alone" bath!" He announced that no one was to enter the bathroom.

Confident that I could now begin my bath in earnest, I took one sip from my glass before putting it on the edge of the tub. It started to slip and I reached to grab it. My arm brushed it just as it broke against the edge of the tub. I muttered, "of course", before sitting up to move away from the glass. As an after-thought, I glanced at my arm. "ARE YOU SERIOUS???" escaped my lips this time. I hadn't felt anything, but there was a deep, gaping hole in my arm. I squeezed the two sides together and called for Chris' help. It took a while to convince him that he really should interrupt my bath. Really should. Right now. Really.

After this, it took a while for him to extract me from the bath because I was coated in oil and couldn't let go of my arm to help him. Once I was finally out of the tub, it took us an entertaining 20 minutes to get me dressed to go to the hospital. Chris told the kids to get ready for Grandpa's house because mama had hurt herself in the tub.  A moment later, my pale, terrified children hurried in to check on me. Apparently, they saw the bathtub and thought the wine that had splashed all over the tub was my blood.  The poor things looked like they'd seen a horror flick.

By the time we were all dressed and the kids were reassured, my arm had stopped bleeding and it looked like a clean cut. We decided to quiz the neighbors.

We have been blessed with some great neighbors, two of whom have medical experience and are now used to us popping in to ask, "Does this require a hospital visit?" So, we popped in and asked. The family laughed. We all laughed. It's like a sitcom routine now. He said that yes, if a doctor saw it, I would undoubtedly get stitches. But, because of where it was located, if I was okay with an ugly scar, it should heal fine with butterfly strips.

Keep in mind that it was a really long, hard day. We just wanted it to be over. We contemplated the prospect of 5 hours in the E.R. and the $700.00 bill to follow. And then we patched me up with butterfly strips.    

It's a week later now and it seems to be healing beautifully. Since I know from too much experience that stitches stay in for 10 to 14 days, I'm leaving these strips on for one more week before thinking about removing them. I anticipate a scar that is small, but good for conversation.

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