A lesson learnt the hard way.... don't use a rotary cutter when your tired!
One fine Sunday afternoon in February I decided to do a little sewing. I had been working out ways to finish a quilt for my nephew Lucas. I had already sewn six blocks by hand and decided to finish it off by machine. Having sorted the fabric and the design I was keen to start cutting so having a little time before dinner I started to cut the fabric into strips. Using my rotary cutter I'd cut 4 strips and had decided to cut 'just one more' as I was a little tired.
Well that 'just one more' was 'just one to many'!
Looking down at the fabric I saw a bit of my finger and finger nail and thought 'that shouldn't be there!' I then looked at my finger and new it was not good!
I raced to the bathroom and wrapped my finger in a towel while calling out to Andrew who was doing some gardening outside... honey I need you, honey, it's serious can you come now, Honey really, right now!
Realising that something was wrong my knight in shining armour raced inside saw my finger and rang the ambulance. The brave man watched from a distance and took photos and laughed while the ambulance men tried to control the bleeding.
Off to the hospital emergency room we went with my finger still bleeding - it took 4 hours to control - not a good thing! Later that night I was sent home with my finger bandaged and an appointment to see the plastic surgeons the following Friday. Thankfully my appointment was brought forward as if it wasn't I would not be sitting here with my finger basically intact.
By Wednesday afternoon infection has taken hold, I was admitted immediately and spent the next 3 weeks in hospital having 2 operations to clean the wound and IV antibiotics to control the infection. As we couldn't save the bit of finger doctors planned to cover the wound with a skin graft but that couldn't be done as the wound had become too infected and doctors feared I would loose my finger if they couldn't control the infection.
Thankfully my finger healed before my wedding and I only lost a bit of my finger tip - the official diagnosis is a partial amputation of index finger!
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| the guys trying to stop the bleeding |
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| 15 minutes later.... still trying to stop the bleeding |
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| not happy..... |
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| laugh.. what else do you do in situations like this? |
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| Wedding invitations still had to be posted! |
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| arm in sling to put my hand out of action after 2nd operation |
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| trying to get blood was never a fun process so gloves filled with hot water were used to warm my veins! |
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| looking cleaner after the second operation |
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| 3 1/2 weeks later and looking really good |
