Wednesday January 15th started out as any other
night. I went to the gym and had a great workout. I came home and took a nice
hot shower and then I asked Andy to help me cut my cuticles (our cuticle cutter
is hard to hold and use by yourself). Andy started to cut my cuticles and then
the cuticle cutter slipped and fell out of his hand. I’m not really sure what
happened next, I looked down and Andy had covered my foot with a bunch of
toilet paper and was screaming, “@%#$*! You’re gonna die!” It was about this
time I started to feel intense pain and I started to cry. I asked him if we
needed to call an ambulance and all he could say was “Oh crap! You’re gonna
die! We need to get you to the hospital.” I asked him to get me some clothes
(at this point I was standing in my towel) and he told me to keep applying
pressure to my foot. Somehow I managed to get my clothes on over my foot while
applying pressure. I wrapped my toilet paper covered foot in an ace bandage,
then I hobbled to the car and we headed to the hospital.
When we pulled up to the hospital it was really dark. Almost
instantaneously we were met by a cop, who asked what we were doing. Andy said,
“My wife needs stitches.” The officer was understanding and he took us into the
Emergency Room. The ER was dark, the cop swiped his badge and let us into
another part of the hospital. We told the people at the desk that I needed
stitches and they started asking me all kinds of questions. They said that
tonight had been a weird night at the hospital and they would have to find the
doctor and the nurse.
As I stood at the desk, I started to feel light headed (I’m
pretty sure I was in shock). After a few minutes someone noticed and asked if I
needed to sit down, all I could do was nod. They brought out a wheel chair, I
sat down, and they wheeled me to my room.
The nurse came in and checked my vitals and asked what
happened. We told her that Andy had been helping me cut my cuticles and the
cuticle cutter slipped and went straight into my foot. The cuticle cutter
didn’t stay in my foot very long because it was forced out by a stream of blood
that shot 6-10 inches into the air. Andy told her he thought the cuticle cutter
went into an artery.
Shortly after that the doctor showed up to look at my foot.
He said it looked like we hit a vein but we had been
close to hitting an artery. He said they could glue my foot or give me stitches
but he thought glue would be the best. I
gave my consent and he started to glue my foot. My foot instantly started to
sting really bad, I looked up at the doctor and asked if it was supposed to
hurt and he said “Oh yeah, sorry I forgot to tell you. It’s been a weird night
here tonight.”
They asked when my last tetanus shot was and I couldn’t
remember so they gave me a tetanus shot. The doctor left and the nurse told me
that I couldn’t get my foot wet for 48 hours and said I couldn’t exercise for
3-4 days. I asked if I could do the elliptical and she said no. I had a hard
time when she said no exercise, I exercise almost every day.
Then the nurse
said we could go. Andy looked up at her and asked if there was anything we
could use to clean up my foot. They glued my foot but they didn’t clean up any
of the blood. The nurse gave him a wet paper towel and we headed home.
 |
| The hole in my foot. |
 |
| Another view of the hole. |
 |
| The culprit. |
It was almost 2:00 am by the time we got home. I called into
work and said I wouldn’t be coming in because I had spent the evening in the ER
and then I crawled into bed. My foot hurt so bad the next day I could hardly
walk, I found myself crawling around the house. They say that tetanus shots
hurt but I have to say that my foot hurt 10x worse than the tetanus shot.
I went into work on Friday. While talking with one of my
co-workers I learned that the hospital had been in lock down when we arrived.
My co-workers daughter works at the hospital and she said that a previous
patient had called in a list of names of ER employees and said they were going
to kill them. That was why the cop met us, why the ER was dark, and why all of
the employees kept saying it was a weird night.
Thanks to a $5.00 pair of slippery cuticle cutters, I now
have a $1200 hospital bill. I always knew there was a reason I didn’t like
cutting my cuticles. Maybe I should just stick with getting manicures =).
