On Wednesday I had a little accident.
I was cleaning the house and pushed down on the trash to compact it down a bit further. I had forgotten that in the trash was a broken glass bowl, and I had shoved on it hard. Real smart. I immediately knew that the resulting cut was more serious than a flesh wound, but I’m still amazed at how calm I stayed. I wrapped my hand in a towel and kept pressure on it. Both boys were napping (thankfully), so I immediately called my sister and asked her come over and stay with them. Then I put on pants one-handed, since I’d been wearing pajama bottoms (I guess I am that vain), and drove myself to the urgent care clinic.
They got me in very quickly, and Jared arrived just before the doctor sewed me up. He gave me seven stitches and told me that I was extremely lucky I didn’t sever an artery, nerve, or tendon. I did nick a nerve, though, because half of my thumb is numb, but the doctor assured me it would grow back.
Thankfully, the injury hasn’t affected my work, because I discovered that I don’t use my left thumb at all when I’m typing. But it definitely hurts, and I can’t bend my thumb at all. Losing the use of the thumb has made other tasks much harder—such as picking up a baby, changing a diaper, using shampoo/soap/lotion, and putting my hair in a ponytail.
But, this is more annoying than tragic. I am very lucky. And thankful.
The fact that you can’t bend your thumb may be caused from an injured tendon. Did they make sure you didn’t injure the tendon? I cut my thumb on a mirror, went to the emergency room and got 9 stitches. The doctor claimed he didn’t “see” a cut tendon, but when I was asked to bend it, I couldn’t and it hurt-BAD. I had to make an appointment with an orthopedic and sure enough he had to do surgery to repair my tendon because it was definitely cut. I had to get cut open again in two places because he had to take a tendon from my wrist to put in my thumb! If the emergency room doctor would have been more thorough, I could have avoided a surgery after the laceration had already healed.