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I Give The Whole Thing One Thumb Up! |
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I'm sitting here now, and I'm not even sure where to start or how to begin any of this. Everything has been running together lately, that I don't know what to do. It's kinda funny/sad, because something strange or mildly interesting will happen, and one of my first thoughts will be how I'll write about it. Then everything piles up and I'm so bundled by it all that I don't even know how to go about it. I need more accessibility to a computer, where other people aren't bugging me on what I'm doing. I can't write if they breathe down my neck.
I suppose I should start with the nitty-gritty. My right thumb is in a splint, because I cut it open with a boxcutter Thursday at work. It's wrapped in bandages, and now has 4 stitches holding it together. I was working with the Christmas trees, bundling them in the netting, but we had nothing to cut the netting from the trees, so I used the boxcutter, and I swiped at the netting a few times, and one of them went right across my thumb and part of my index finger, it was a very clean cut, and only hurt for a second, but it took a second or two to start bleeding, but when it did it was profusely.
I immediately grabbed the paper towels underneath the register counter outside in the Garden, and went to go wash it off and try to bandage it. I used some other bandages we had in a first aid kit at work, but it wouldn't stop bleeding, so I tried icing it down. Finally, around the time that we closed, LOD Justin came out to close me, and asked to take a look at my finger, which I reluctantly did. He saw how bad the cut was and told me he was gonna call MedCor, it's some care center affiliated wth Target to help with Employee or Guest injuries. He told me he was pretty sure I was going to need stitches, he used to work as an executive chef at P.F. Chang's, and had seen a lot of cuts in his day, I didn't doubt it.
While giving the cut pressure with both my hands, I fumbled for the phone and spoke with the operator on the phone, gave him all my information, and he gave me directions to Concentra Medical Center, which is kinda like a UMC Quick Care, but for work related injuries with specific companies. Justin called my Dad, and explained the situation, so he came to pick me up. Justin went off to head back to work, and I just sat there in the Team Lead office, holding my finger, and explaining the same old story to everyone who walked by about what happened, and getting their five minutes each of, "Oh, that sucks, man." "You gotta have someone take a look at that."
I was much more concerned with my family's reaction the whole deal. I got asked by both Justin and later by Dr. Gueyikian, the guy who sewed me up, why I waited so long to tell anyone. I was almost in tears at this point, sitting there thinking about what was happening.
The honest truth is, I didn't want to bother anyone about it.
Now of course, later, everyone told me it was a stupid reason and I shouldn't have let it go. But, I guess I'm the type of person, that when something like this happens, I'm more concerned about this is going to affect everyone else. My thoughts were revolving around How is anyone going to help in the Garden Center? and What if I can't work with this and I can't get paid or What if I need to go to the hospital? I didn't want to have to go through that to inconvenience anyone, so I tried all those things before Justin saw it, like I was praying that if it could just stop bleeding, I could think of something. But it didn't, so I felt doomed.
My Dad showed up about 20 minutes later, and holding my hand, I explained what happened, and I was ready to go, but then from seemingly out of nowhere he asked me if I had checked with Justin to make sure it was alright for me to leave? I kinda WTF?'ed at him, because I couldn't believe he was serious, but then I remembered how assholey the bosses were at the Stardust, or any Las Vegas Casino for that matter, you'd have to be dead and they'd still get you to make drinks. I knew it was ok, but I did it just to satisfy him, I didn't want him mad at me, if he was already.
On the drive to the clinic, I don't know how many times I apologized to my Dad about the whole incident. Everyone tells me I overreact, but I just have this problem with this stuff happening now. My mindset tells me that now that I'm 18 and have a job and go to college, I shouldn't rely on anyone anymore, but I'm still just a wreck anyway. Instead of being independent, I'm think I'm taking it to ignorant of anyone's help. I'm trying too hard to prove to everyone I can take care of myself, and when I can't handle the pressure I break down or escape from it without really getting away. I just don't want to look like I'm needy or I can't handle things.
So we made it to the clinic, and they took me in right away, saying "We have a bleeder!". So my nurse, Anastasia (awesome name, eh?) whisked me into a room, and got all the paperwork started with my dad and started cleaning my hand. She was all kinds of awesome, very funny and made the experience a lot easier for me. The doctor came in as well, his name was Dr. Gueyikian, and he and Anastasia sort of went through a Manzai routine while they pieced me back together. The stitching was very painful, but their bedside manner helped a lot. I could feel each stitch one by one, it's difficult since you have the most sensitive nerves in your hands and feet, so I was twitching in the chair a little.
Afterwards, Dr. G wrote me a prescrip for some antibiotics, and Anastasia handed me a little kit so I could redress my bandages twice a day. I thanked them so much, and so did my Dad, and we drove home from there. The pain kinda kept me up, and I found Jason online and told him the situation. It was nice to finally talk to a friend, I've been kinda upset lately that no one has made an effort to keep in touch still.
But other than that, I haven't been dealing with as much. Work has been difficult, it takes longer and longer to close the store completely as we get closer to Christmas, so I haven't been staying for extra hourse lately. I'm happy because it seems like the Team Leads and my other higher-ups have taken a liking to me, they know I do a good job, and it's nice to be on a friendly note with them, and I'm still really grateful Justin helped me out, I'm scared to think what might have happened if I had tried to go home with that injury.
It's suprising how difficult it is to do certain things with just one hand. Taking a shower for instance is a challenge all in itself, at least I'm a lefty, so writing or anything like that hasn't gotten harder. But playing my DS is a pain in the a** without my thumb, I've gotten used to using my index finger. In fact, I played my first Wi-Fi match online with Jump! Ultimate Stars the other day, and the servers have to connect in Japan since the game is an import. I was playing against 1 supposedly U.S. person named "Geo" and two Japanese people whose names I couldn't read. I won the first 3 matches even though my hand was like this, so I'd like to think I have a few bragging rights being a Japanese player-beating cripple. xd
Edible Substance · Tue Dec 19, 2006 @ 07:10am · 2 Comments |
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