the finger

Last Thursday I was packing up the Highlander for our weekend away in Pittsburgh.  I needed to take Theo to the doctor for his flu shot so I was in a bit of a rush.  The power was out for some mysterious reason, and this didn't click with me that it was going to be a problem until I hit the button for the garage door opener about 6 times with no results. 

Crap. 

So I had to call the man of the house to find out how to disengage the opener.  Okay, figured that out.  Not so challenging.  Once I got the car out of the garage, I walked up to the door to close it.  No exterior handle.  Well I didn't THINK I had the time to go inside, close it, lock it, and go out the front door, so I grabbed the door naturally where the sections separate.  Unfortunately for me and 3 of the fingers on my right hand, I didn't think about the fact that a little pull would cause the door to come flying down at break-neck speed, with my precious little fingertips still between the garage door sections. 

Crap.

I stood there staring at the door, which was all the way down, and my 3 fingers that were lodged between the panels of the garage door.  Then I panicked.  And I pulled them back towards my body.  Not moving.  AT all.  So then I pushed the garage door up with my left hand, careful not to stick my fingertips between the sections this time.  I got the door up and my fingers out.  That is when I saw the horror.  Sheer horror.

Crap.

My ring finger had blood coming out of both sides of the finger nail and the middle finger and index finger had gnarly indentations in them where they were smashed in the door.  Talk about panic.  I was literally pacing around in the garage shrieking in pain, unable to comprehend what just happened and/or what needed to happen next.  I went in the house and tried to turn on the kitchen faucet to rinse the blood off my hand but the electric water pump was dead.  I grabbed a couple of bottles of water dumped them on my hand.  Then I took this picture:

Ouch. 

Then I wrapped my fingers up in band aids, went and got my son from the babysitter, took him to get his shot, and went on a mini-vacation.  Dealing with the fingers were a pain in the butt while on vacation.  If there was anything to be thankful for, at least I didn't have to go back to work for 4 days and I had reinforcements changing diapers and baby clothes, which was pretty much impossible (as Theo likes to grab at anything and everything these days).  The ring finger is still in pretty bad shape but the other 2 feel almost back to normal.  Just a little sore.  The ring finger is VERY sore and the fingernail is wiggly, like a Lee press-on nail.  Only if I catch it on something, it hurts...bad.  It is only attached about halfway up from the end.  Oh, and clear goo seeps out of it randomly.  Yum.

P.S. Typing is not that fun.  

~C~