Things I have learned this morning:

(I'll try to keep this as non-gory as possible but if you're really squeamish you might not read. I will say it's a happy outcome)

One of those "guillotine" type paper cutters really WILL cut a thumb.

Cut thumbs bleed like a MOTHER.

Applying pressure to a deep cut is very much your friend.


I was chopping up bits of pink and blue paper this morning - for this exercise in my gen bio class. (Note to self: In future, prep class first, then check e-mail and blog. Do not be cutting paper in a hurry at 7:40 am).

I got distracted by a noise - the air conditioning coming on - and looked away, and WHAM. My left thumb. I can't tell you whether I felt the pain first or felt the resistance of the blade first, but I knew something was wrong.

It was one of those nighmare moments - where you look down and go, oh crap, something is very wrong. I had sliced into my thumb. It was beginning to bleed. Hard.

I wondered briefly if I had cut far enough to go to the bone but decided it was best not to check too closely, as finding that out would make me sick to my stomach and I had a class to teach in a few minutes. So I rinsed the cut, slapped on a "knuckle" bandage (How thankful I am for the abundant first-aid kits in this building!). And it kept bleeding, so I grabbed some gauze and wrapped my thumb and then clenched my right hand over the thumb and pressed hard, remembering all those years of Girl Scout and Day Camp and Health Class training that tell you to put pressure on a cut. (I never really believed it before today). Feeling a little sick and shock-y, I went off and taught my first class. While they were taking a short exam, I sat and thought: how can I get in to get someone to look at this? Should I get someone to look at this? If I go to the ER, it's such a minor injury, I'd probably be waiting there ten hours. Do regular doctors do this kind of stuff?

And then I remembered - the school nurse. If she was going to be in today, I could go have her check it out - she could tell me if stitches were called for and she could bandage it the right way if they weren't. (And then I feared: she had a funeral in Lubbock to go to tomorrow. Had she left already?)

Somehow I made it through both classes, called over, she was in.

Drove over there (normally I would walk but I was still feeling shaky - it is pretty damn scary to have a big cutting blade come down on a part of your anatomy). She took off the bandage - warning me that there'd probably be more blood. And then she said, "Oh....it's started to seal back up already." She just cleaned the surface, but some antibiotic cream on it, and re-bandaged it. (She also asked about my tetanus shot, which was up to date.) She warned me it was probably going to bruise - from the force of the thing coming down - and be sore. But that's nothing - I was thinking, stitches or down to the bone or some kind of other equally horrible thing.

She said that all the pressure I applied to it - which was probably partly a frantic subconscious "I'm holding my thumb on" gesture - was what hastened the sealing. No need for stitches, thank God. Not just because of the pain and effort but also because of the time involved going somewhere and getting them.

And here is how I am a big freak: in the middle of all this, I found myself worrying about whether I'd be able to knit or sew this weekend with whatever kind of bandage I wound up with. (Well, okay, I also worried about how I'd wash my hair if my left thumb wound up swathed in gauze and a stern admonition not to get it wet, but knitting was the first thing to come to mind.)