It was no George Clooney ER...

It was a dark and stormy night. The wind was blowing and the sky was a frightening shade of grey...

No, seriously, this is Seattle, it really was!

So last night Donia and I were just chillin at the crib, havin a raspberry iced tea, watching a little local news. I, as usual, was trolling the internet and Donia, as usual, was in the kitchen. She was putting some dishes away and, being the small fry that she is, reaching on her tippy toes to get stuff on the top shelves. I heard a crash and a grunt and giggled as I asked, "Are you ok?" She answered with, "Yeah, Im fine. If I was hurt you wouldn't hear anything, I'm usually quiet at first if I'm hurt." "Not me", I said, "Id be screamin!"

Fast forward 10 MINUTES. I hear another crash and immediately a scream. I throw the computer on the table as she's saying "Oh God, baby, I hurt myself. Oh no, I cut myself!" I knew she was serious this time and not just playing off of our convo from earlier. I jump up and run to the scene of the accident: I see the vegetable slicer, with its large blade, on the floor, and her keeled over holding her hand, blood on the paper towel she'd grabbed. Fuck. Im frantically like, "Are you ok, are you ok!? Oh God look at it, are you ok?" She gets upset for a sec and says," I don't know, ok..." and as she looks down she panics and says "Oh God, I need stitches". She insists I look at the wound, too, but I'm already shaking and afraid of seeing the blood, never mind a gaping cut. Now, we are set into action and I immediately go into panic mode (I suck at this stuff!)

I run around like a crazy girl in search for shoes, purses, a towel for the wound, and her wallet. She is just silent and calm, holding her hand tight. We run out the door and luckily, thank God, we live directly across the street from the hospital. We run up and down blocks following signs for the ER. We walk in and, well, they take their sweet ass time even asking us why were there. I'm so out of breath, and the girl doesn't even bat an eye! I tell them, "She cut herself" and she says"...ok. Has she been here before?" Not, "how badly" or "let us see", just "Do you have her insurance card?" There was just no sense of urgency in this girls bones! I was wondering if Id walked in with half my face hanging off if she'd have made me dig through my wallet for identification and confirmed my address before even taking me in! Needless to say, she sucked. No one saw the wound, and we are told to go sit down. Its 10 minutes before anyone even stirs, and so I say, "Show them you're bleeding through the tissue, tell them its not a minor cut!" As she stumbles over to the counter, again, being ignored, a woman calls out her name. This woman must have been the triage nurse. She gets Donia's info, does her vitals, but can barely help her control the bleeding cuz she has no idea where the supplies are! She has us sit down 5 more minutes before she brings us to the suture room. Or, as I like to think of it, the worst room you can possibly be in. Stitches make my skin crawl, they make me itch just thinking about them. I hate looking at pictures of people with stitches. Like nails on a chalkboard for me. We are in the suture room 20 more minutes before this really cool kid came and did some survey for the hospital, asking about emergency contacts, religious preference (yikes! in case of death??), and demographic info. Finally, after another 25 minutes or so, the "Physicians Assistant" named Tom comes in to sew her up. He's dry and corny, but funny. Typical hospital worker trying to put a patient at ease. He looked like Dr Drew, which was fun for me. He threw the packaging of the supplies he used all over the counter, like a mad scientist. He even had some playful banter with a nurses aid named "Jojo" to keep us entertained. All in all, I sat at the other side if the bed and held Donia's hand while he gave her shots, cleaned blood, and stitched away. My head was turned to the wall, and yes, Tom, this is how I would like to stay.

She was very brave and I'm impressed by her. I would have been a stupid mess over nothing, but she keeps things in perspective so well. When asked on a scale of 1-10 how bad her pain was, she said 5. Later she told me, "Well, I couldn't say 10. 10 is like having a baby. Nina was a 10. I cant say I'm that bad". Ha! I would have answered 11 if it was me. Such a tough little champ, if she enjoyed sweets and girly toys Id have taken her out for ice cream and bought her a Barbie doll for her bravery. Thats what always got me through...
So now shes loopy and hurting and I have to take care of her. And by that I mean change her dressing, wrap it before her shower, and do all the dishes for the week, the latter being the most devastating one. I love her, but I don't love dishes. Oh, listen to me, going on and on about how I'm suffering through this injury...

*Wait, its my blog. I can do what I want. Ok, back to me...*

So, I insist on waiting on her hand and foot, and it's not even really that bad of an injury (so she says). I guess its just what you do for someone when you love them. *And when you anticipate you may need some waiting on someday and you wanna be able to pull the "remember-that-stitches-time" card...*

So, in case you were wondering, the exact story of how this happened was that she was going to make coffee and as she reached for a filter, the veggie slicer she'd put haphazardly on the top shelf came crashing down. She instinctively went to catch it, or at least stop it from falling, and it came straight down, Guillotine style on her finger. Sliced right into her. Had it been any sharper she may have lost some of her finger, I'm guessing. Also, had it not been made in 1954, and had we not just bought it 6 days ago, this crisis may have been averted. Oh well, live and learn. Lesson 1: Leah puts dishes away on the top shelves. Lesson 2: Maybe items that contain open and sharp blades/daggers should be put on lower shelves.

Quote of the night: Right before going to sleep, Donia utters, "I hate my mortal body". (As opposed to her IMmortal body? Yeah, interpret that as you will, it was way too New Testament/Sci-Fi Channel for me at that late hour.)

Were just thankful it didn't fall on her face or head, and that her battle scar will be mini.

oh, and it got us a three day weekend...