a hazard to myself

I injure myself. Often. Most days, I don't realize it until I put lotion on my legs and realize I have a large bruise on the side of my calf or look down at my pinky toe and realize that when I stubbed it 20 minutes ago, it drew blood. I can deal with these things. It's my recent proclivity toward removing portions of my digits in kitchen settings that bothers me.

Two years ago I sliced my right pointer finger open on a removable bin at Sonic. I got 2 stitches and had my first and only experience with prescription strength pain killers. Seven months ago I shaved the skin of the second knuckle of the aforementioned digit almost cleanly off with a cheese grater. I passed out, went to school an hour later with a throbbing hand, and taught with a bandage and splint on my finger for 2.5 weeks. This morning (while caring for 2 children which are not mine), I sliced through half of my left thumb nail with a large knife while chopping onions. I -nearly- passed out and would have gone to get stitches if they could put stitches through a fingernail.

I must also mention, though, my literal hero in all three of these events--my husband. Two years ago with the first nearly deadly injury, he happened to be stopping by Sonic to get a midnight refill of Dr. Pepper, only to leave with large amounts of my blood literally on his hands. Seven months ago, I woke him up from a sound sleep with blood dripping down my arm and 30 second later passed out on top of him. Today, I calmly called him away from playing Lego Starwars with an impassioned six-year-old to figure out what to do with a spliced nail-bed. Today is probably the first day of my life I can honestly say "I'm so glad that my husband works nights."

So, by the time I'm 40, the likelihood of me having 10 fingers is at about 75%. It's almost just as likely that my pinky toes will no longer be attached to my foot, and if they are they will almost certainly be much shorter than they currently are. I just hope that I never have to experience any of the amputations without my personal EMT.

M

P.S. While there are many tasks that were more difficult to do without a working right index finger, there are many more that are nearly impossible to perform without the use of a thumb: zipping a ziplock bag, putting hair up in a pony tail, buttoning and unbuttoning things, washing hair, opening jars, opening doors, and last but not least, texting. I now know why animals not having opposable thumbs is such a big deal.