I Shall Blame my Mother

Or at least I shall try.
A few weeks ago we had a dinner party. Now it wasn't a fancy dinner party, but it was a dinner party nonetheless.
This is a rarity. Why? I will tell you why. My family is turning out to be quite large. With a sizeable contingecy of young children. Young.. energetic children. And whenever we get together, it just seems like the right thing to do to use paper plates and sharpied solo cups, unless it's a holiday and holidays are at my grammas. This is not negotiable.
And you cannot have a dinner party if you use paper plates. You simply cannot. It goes against nature.
The other reason is, all of my friends have young children and require paper plates and large jungle gyms to get together. Someday we might have a dinner party. Someday.
But a few fridays ago, a missionary visiting our church and some other church friends came over for dinner.
I spent the day preparing.
It was a great day. Everything went off without a hitch. The house looked good, the tables were set up, dinner prep was going well.
I had made broccoli salad the day before, as well as the Asian slaw dressing. The pork chops were cut, seasoned and ready to be grilled. The pototoes were roasting in the oven and the blackberry cobbler was ready to go in next.
Things were going so well, in fact, that I poured myself a glass of wine (I opened it for the potatoes..geesh).
I blame my mother for the events that followed.
In all the advice she has given me, she never mentioned it was unwise to drink while wielding a knife.

I continued in my preparations, at this time Everette was finished working and was downstairs helping me, and entertaining Jonathan (or you could say, just helping me).
***********Warning! The Following is NOT for the weak and faint of heart.*****

It was 5:56, and I began to slice the bread, to warm it in the oven.
At the exact moment, my son decided he had to poop (seriously, some day I am going to search my blog archives and count exactly how many of my posts mention poop-it must be some kind of record). So Everette took Jonathan upstairs.  I heard them walking up the stairs as I began to cut the next slice of bread. The knife was sharp. So sharp that I was all the way through the side of my left index finger before I realized what happened.
I gasped.

Everette: What happened?
Now I am not sure about you, but in the following seconds after I injure myself- I am unable to speak. My body is assessing the pain, and all of the screaming rage is welling up inside me. I guess truthfully, I could speak, but if I opened my mouth during those few seconds streams of profanity and incredibly vile and offensive language would spew out of my mouth, along with several previously eradicated diseases. So I must keep my mouth shut. To Everette, however, this means something must be really wrong and his natural response is to ask again.
Everette: are you ok?
(This only brings more poisonous venom and boiling rage to the surface).
more pause
Me: I cut myself (as I quickly step to the sink and grab a paper towel.

Everette (hollering down from upstairs): Are you ok? Do you need to go the emergency room?
Me: I don't think so 
I then take off the paper towel and look, before I could even get a good look, blood started dripping into the sink.
Crap! maybe I do need to go to urgent care. Did I cut through an artery? Do you have arteries in your fingers? uhh this is bad.  Maybe I should go to urgent care. Nooo! People will be here at any minute! Who will bake the cobbler!?!?!  OK Megan, get a grip, assess.  You have seen eleven seasons of ER, your mom's a nurse.  Ok-the blood is not spurting (as in with my beating heart) that's good. Pressure, you need to put pressure on it. OK where are the band-aids?

I walk to the bathroom to get the band-aids and peek out the front window, the first guest is here. Crap! This is the one time dinner guests are on time! 
I run up the stairs passing Everette on the way down.
Me:  People are here!
Everette: are you sure you are ok?
I ignored him as I ran upstairs.
I wrapped it in one band-aid but before I could even get it completely on, the blood started squeezing through the air holes in the band-aid.
So I slapped on another one.
Then I raced down stairs, to find that thankfully there was no blood anywhere to be found in the kitchen. Wouldn't that have been a lovely welcoming.

I took some Tylenol and kept my hand elevated, and somehow managed to make it through the evening.
But in the morning when I removed the band-aid and it started bleeding again, I decided I had better go to urgent care.
So I drove myself to Sigma Immediate care.
The doctor looked at my finger and after I told him the story, asked where the rest of the skin ended up. I looked at him.
"Seriously? " I said. " I am guessing down the sink or in the garbage."
"Well, I thought we might have tried to graft it on." he said.
"uhh sorry" I said.
So he told me he could cauterize it with Silver Nitrate.
I asked him if it would hurt, he said "yeah some." But then I remembered that Jonathan got his belly button cauterized when he was several months old and he did seemed to be too bothered. So I said go ahead.

HOLY FREAKIN' COW!!! That was some serious, serious, serious pain. I mean serious!! Like old-school-take-a-swig-of-whiskey-and-we- will-reset-your-bone pain. Only there was no whiskey and it took longer.
The doctor, when I was done told me that it was pretty much like a cigarette burn.
To which I replied, "thanks, I had always wondered, and now I know."
Then they left me alone to whimper in private.
Of course, because I love you guys I busted out my phone to take some pictures. But since I was quivering in pain, and trying not to pass out or lose my lunch, they were pretty much too blurry to see.
But never fear. I took some later!!

Don't look if you are a weenie. 

This is probably the best over all picture. It was taken several days later, trust me this is an improvement.
The center is the actual cut, and the lovely dark part on the outside is otherwise healthy skin, a casualty of cauterizing.

I like to think the whole thing looks like an eyeball and I am just making finger puppets. Surprise! I was just practicing my "smokey eye" makeup strategies.

At this particular moment, I had a very slight infection going on down in there, and you can see the slight radiating red on the lower part of my finger.

And well... this one, I just like the artistic lighting I had going on here. So I figured you would too, and I really hate to disappoint all four of you. It is kind of like an artsy portrait.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I am a photographer, and I am available for your wedding or family photo shoot.
Thank you all for listening.
And remember, mom, this is all your fault! Who knew knives could be so dangerous?!