I hesitate to speak of any more medical horror stories after Mel’s. I’ve had a miscarriage and it was easy compared to Mel’s. But, I don’t guess this is really a competition.

Horror #2 happened in the 6th grade when I was 11. Being the reckless little non-thinking child that I was, I was playing with a razor blade. They really do cut well. LOL Anyway, my right hand slipped as I was trying to cut something, and sliced across my left index finger. I immediately panicked and thought “Oh my God; I’m going to die.” But that was replace right away with “No, you’re not. You just need to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding.” I assume one or both of my parents had taught me some basic first aid. So I found an old tshirt (I was at the barn) and used that to soak up the blood while I was putting pressure on the cut. Oh, it was deep, and I knew I had to have some help.

Remember from my last post how I mentioned my dad had over-reacted to my broken leg? Yeah, so I didn’t go to him with the cut. Mom was in the bathroom getting ready for church, so I went up to the window and told her I needed help. She looked out and saw a bloody rag on my hand, and thought I had cut my finger off. She met me in the kitchen, and started cleaning it up-calmly, I might add. Then Daddy walked around the corner, and lost it. “THAT NEEDS STICHES WE HAVE TO GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM!” and proceeded to yell at me for being a dumb*** the whole way to the hospital. As an aside, Daddy’s index and middle fingers were chopped off when he was 5, so I understand part of the reasoning behind his over-reaction.

So finally, we get to the ER, and I don’t know if they took us right back because no one else was there or if it was because Daddy was still melting down, but I was taken right back regardless. Now, the deep cut was from right to left across my index finger, but I also nicked in between my index and middle knuckles. Well, as the doc is evaluating he makes the statement about the nick being a hesitation mark. I don’t know if he was joking (was not funny), or just an idiot (what my mom thought of him), but that immediately put him on my bad list.

Mom said she nearly had a cow when she saw the doc’s hand shaking as he was holding the needle. I don’t know if that was when he was giving the local anesthetic shot, or when he went to sew it up. Either way, she said that was torture watching him stitch me up with shaky hands. He wasn’t old either. Rumor mill said he was a drunk, and as far as she was concerned, that confirmed the rumors.

Now the only bright spot in the story was Norma Bryant was working in the ER that night. (Her husband Rick might have been too, but too many years have passed for me to correctly remember.) Norma held my hand the whole time I was on the table keeping me calm.