Trauma: Life in the Hayes Kitchen ER

Soo.. on Thursday, my brother-in-law Will and I decided it would be fun to make homemade pasta for the family for dinner. We planned the menu and around 6:00 p.m., I started prepping. I made my 5 ingredient pasta sauce (yum, ask me for the recipe..simple and delicious!) and started to get other stuff ready. I was using some of my parents old kitchen knives to chop the fresh herbs with. Then my dad brought out the knife my mom had given him for their anniversary (which I actually helped pick out.. ironic) and told me I could use it. How fun! If you know me at all, you know that I am probably the only person who has thoroughly used every kitchen gadget I got for a wedding gift, and I still ask for more gadgets and will use them! Moving on... I was getting ready to chop the oregano to add as the last ingredient to the pasta sauce. Like Rachel Ray taught me, I bundled all of the leaves together and got the knife into position. After a mere slice, I caught the edge of my middle finger and made a small paper cut on the tip. Ouch.. but no biggie. I washed it with water, put a bandaid on it and got back to chopping. No more than 2 chops later, the thing which I never thought I would do, happened. It was surreal. I had to look to make sure what I think happened, did. Then I began screaming, crying, jumping up and down and grabbing for paper towels for pressure. I didn't know how bad it was, but I knew some of my finger that was previously on my finger was now on the knife and cutting board. OH MY GOSH.. pain like I have never experienced! My whole family ran into the kitchen, also screaming, then some ran back to the bathroom since the babies were unattended in the bathtub (way to go Katie!). That's when it got worse. I was losing blood, everyone was freaking out and I was getting weaker and weaker. Oh yea, and Caleb was gone for the evening with friends, perfect.

Here's where the kitchen turned into the ER. My dad grabbed my finger (the one still attached) and looked to see how much I chopped, then told me to sit down. Think: I'm screaming and crying through all this. He made Erin put pressure on my hand, then grabbed ice because I was apparently trying to pass out (I kept saying "I need to sleep"). Then he told Erin to make sure I stayed awake and slap my face if I didn't..which she had to slap me, then I apparently slapped her back. Then I had to lay down to get all the blood to my head because I was ghostly looking. During this time, Megan and Will came home from the store and started freaking out too, how fun! I don't know how much time elapsed, but after a while, I guess the bleeding stopped and my dad told me that I would just have to let the finger regenerate itself because it wasn't enough to re-attach. Super. Then he asked me if I wanted to save the severed finger (what?!?!).. that was a big fat no.

So here I am almost 3 days later and my finger still hurts like words I cannot say. And, after going to the doctor (who was freaked out that I asked her to look at it... what kind of doctor is that??!!?), she told me that most of the finger should regenerate itself because it's in the nailbed, and there is only some of it I should be concerned with. But she didn't tell me what to do about the part that may not regenerate... hum. So I am just using Neosporin + Pain, gauze, tape, maximum doses of Advil and A LOT of prayer to heal my finger. And no, you may not look at it unless you are so lucky as to be here when I am redressing it.. and NO, there are no pictures, sorry. If you feel so inclined, I'd love some prayer for my finger to completely regenerate, and quickly!

Next post will be much more fluffy and warm and fun!