Day 5

Day 5 - Something you will never forget

VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED!!!  Some of these photos are a bit gory.

Well, some of you may have heard that while I was creating these beauties -

I cut off a part of my left thumb.  Needless to say, it was by far the worst injury I have ever had, and I sure hope nothing like that ever happens to me, or any of you, ever again! 

Now for the photos: "Chronicles of my Thumb."  I'm warning you - they're gross!

This is while we were at the emergency room, which was my first visit there.  They finally got the bleeding to stop after trying a couple of different procedures, both of which hurt horribly. 

It doesn't really look that bad in this picture because it's a little blurry, but it's a pretty good chuck and some of my nail is gone too.

Note:  If you look at the rest of my thumb, you can see that it is stained red from all the blood that I lost.  The rest of my hand looked like this too.

 This is the picture of how they got it to stop bleeding.  After trying some medicated styrofoam stuff, they resorted to using silver nitrate.  What's that you ask?  I don't really know, but it came on the end of a stick (think of what a giant match would look like) and he had to press that end on my wound to transfer the silver nitrate.  Magically, it stopped the bleeding, but there were lots of tears shed at this particular moment.

This picture was taken a couple days later during a cleaning.  I had to wear a gauze bandage over it for a couple days and clean it once a day with soap and water.  I am not one that is weak in the stomach when it comes to things like this, but while cleaning it the first week, I had a couple time I had to sit down for fear of passing out. 

The skin grows back from the outside in.  That's why there is a little hole in the middle where skin hasn't yet grown back.

Kaylan and TJ were great doctors helping me clean it for the first few days.  I couldn't have done it without them. 

 No, it's not infected in this picture.  That is my new skin, and the red spot is where the hole is not all the way healed shut yet. 

The black ring around my wound is just dried blood that had seeped into my good skin when I first cut it. 

On another note, I slept on the couch for two whole weeks because that's the only way I could ensure not bumping it on anything. 

 This picture is from the same time as the one above.  It healed weird with this bump sticking out, but eventually that went away.  You can see that part of my nail is missing in this one.

It's finally starting to feel better by this point. 

This happened on Wednesday, June 15th.  I was off work for exactly two weeks.  Thankfully I was able to go back to work then since it is on the inside of my thumb.  I definitely have to appreciate that my hands are what keep me working, and I will be taking the appropriate steps to make sure I don't lose a finger making any more crafts!

This is at the same time as the one above.  I finally am getting my shape back in my thumb by this point, which the doctor said should completely come back.  I sure hope he's right!

 This picture is three weeks after the accident.  It's white like that because it's all dead skin that will eventually fall off.  I could do pretty much anything with it again, but I definitely was still babying it. 

This was around the first time I was able to play with Miles again.  It was an awful three weeks not being able to snuggle that little guy!

This is when the dead skin started to fall off.  I literally didn't think it was going to stop taking over my good skin.  And of course this was happening right as we were heading back to Iowa for the annual Baxter Fun Days!

And five weeks after my accident, this is what my thumb looks like.  It's still really tender and has a really small scab on the end, but at least I know it's almost back to normal!  However, I am not so sure that my nail will ever be the same.  I can't wait to see what it's like to be able to use my left thumb all the time again!! 













Sorry for the picture and info overload.  This was a pretty big event in my life that just took up half my summer.  I felt the need to document it properly. :) 

I hope you all have a great weekend!