Thumbs up!

On Monday, I was all excited because of our Dragonboat win last Saturday, and must admit to being on a high. It was the first time in years I can think of that I was (sort of**) truly happy. I bounced around the staff room telling everyone about the events of the day... it was fun. It's not often Ticehurst win anything, so it really did feel extra special.

Then I had to get on with getting lessons ready, and the first thing I had to do was make up some more kits for a 'circular motion' practical. The kit consisted of a rubber bung on one end of a length of fishing line, and a piece of split cork on the other to keep the line from coming out of the holding tube. That sounds complicated, so hang on a minute, and I'll do a quick diagram:

So, I was carefully cutting tubes and corks with a scalpel and stringing them together, when the bell went for the next lesson. I took the safety cork for the top of the scalpel, and slipped it onto the sharp (dirty) blade. My grip went, and my thumb slid up the said blade. I swore at this point, knowing what damage the dissecting blade could do, and almost not daring to look.

Not that I had any choice. By this time blood was splattering everywhere. Being the fast-thinking supermum I am, I grasped my thumb firmly and ran downstairs, trailing blood behind me (so I was assured by my teacher friend, Pip, who mopped it up as she came downstairs hot on my tail :-) ). In the staffroom Liz, who is a first-aider, wrapped it in guaze. We couldn't really see it for the blood, but the cut went from one side to the other. Liz thought I should go into A & E and get it looked up.

I thought the bleeding was slowing, and really couldn't be bothered going to Tunbridge Wells only to wait for ages, then have to get a taxi back. It all seemed too much effort for a little cut on the thumb. I said to Liz I'd go to my doctor's across the road and see if they would give me a tetanus booster and check it was clean.

Well, the nurse fetched the doc, and the doc said 'stitches'. I tell you, the most painful bit of the day wasn't the cut, or the stitches, but having the local anaesthetic!! Anyhow, the long and short of it was I returned to work with two stitches more than I left it a short time earlier. But funnier than that I cut myself open putting on the safety cork was my now comic-sized thumb!!

Yuk!! There was no dressing cover big enough
to go over it, so it's gotten pretty manky! :-(

Difficult things to do with a comic thumb:

1. Open cartons of juice and milk
2. Do up buttons
3. hang washing on the line (kept clipping thumb to line!)
4. Eat a subway sandwich (meatball, salad & extra chillies - you wouldn't believe how hard I tried not to put that disgusting thumb anywhere near it, but still the dressing has a trace of orange sauce! :-S )
5. Cook (cutting up onions and carrots has become one of the biggest hurdles of the week to overcome - you try it holding your thumb in the air for hygiene purposes!)
6. Wash hands (squirty came into its own this week)
7. Take a casette out of the player in the car (believe me - this was near impossible whilst driving!)
8. Turn pages of a book/ flick through a magazine (though I did find out swapping hands helped)
9. Painting the in-built wardrobe I made at the end of the summer holidays (still a whole lot of shelves to finish)
10. Sew anything with any accuracy (but I did get the hang of this eventually)
11. Wash my hair (which you could see from Dragonboat pics in previous post has actually grown back).
12. Put hand into gap between washing machine and dishwasher to retrieve dropped knife (
    
13. Washing up (absolutely impossible to hold something in injured hand without the use of the thumb getting either dirty or wet, or putting the dirty dressing on the item you're cleaning! I gave up with this one :-S )
14. Pushing the button in on the car's handbrake.

Well, those are the things I remember that have made this week difficult, but even then it hasn't been so bad. I haven't had to take time off work. The only dodgy time was when it felt like I was coming down with a high fever (probably due to the diptheria and polio vaccinations they now combine with the tetanus shot), but that too went quickly. I'm only glad it's the weekend, and I can go at a slower pace.

Still writing (or rather re-writing) the novel I wrote last March. When it's finished, I'll write you a sample of it, or maybe a summary, and you can say what the heck you want about it, because it'll be finished and won't worry me so much then... Now it's a work-in-process and I'm a bit precious about it!

Anyhow, I feel guilty as anything for not returning to blogging as I'd planned. It's so hard, because I know how much time I spent blogging before, and just now I don't feel I have that time, I'm doing so many other things. But I haven't forgotten any of my friends here. I think of you all often. I still have my confession to make, and it concerns friendships, and why I'm finding it very hard at the moment. I might do the post over at my other blog, Sultana Fling at some point soon, because it's likely to be a long and drawn out post mortem of my life... and might get a bit maudlin :-)

I haven't shut the blog down yet... it's been close a few times, but just knowing you are there has stopped me. It is amazing what knowing such lovely people as yourselves does to heal and comfort. I'm sure that I will get over my obstacles (that I'll tell you about in my 'confession' :-) ) and be back shortly...please be a bit more patient?

**The 'sort of' was dampened down by my friend Julia's sister having to go into hospital for a double masectomy... Hopefully it was caught before it turned into something malevelant, but we have to wait two weeks to find out for sure