Ouch...

The evening started out really well, only to come to a horrifying crash. Technically, it's still a full moon, and this week has been a helluva a rollercoaster ride, so I'm blaming it on that. (And I hate rollercoasters, so that's not a good thing). I'm not as wordy as usual tonight because I'm only typing with 7 fingers. And I'm fairly sedated and still in shock from the pain, but I'll tell you about that in a moment.

After my last entry, at which time I was in a really great mood, my husband and I went out and had a very pleasant dinner at our neighborhood Mexican restaurant, it was packed full of lots of older folks and some families, including a table full of screaming kids next to us which set off my tinnitis and my left ear is still ringing. But the food was tasty, the service excellent. Then we drove to a neighborhood liqor store to finish up shopping for my parents, inlaws and I purchased an excellent bottle of 10 year old tawny Port for myself, which turned out to be much needed. We were going to go to the big store downtown, but didn't want to be gone that long.

Our errands were completed quickly and we were congratulating ourselves on not being gone too long because our 16 year old Lab can't be left alone too long and then the horrific chain of events unfolded...

Whenever we get home from being gone together, my husband opens the garage door for me (I drive usually, and his side of the garage has the only automatic opener), then he runs right into the house to check on the dog. At her age, it's amazing she can still walk, though she has very weak back legs. She's not in pain, just very numb. I pulled into the garage, trying to align the car where it wasn't too far forward and instead ended up parking where I just cleared the garage door. As soon as I got out of the car I called out to him to inquire if the dog was OK, and he said in an emotional voice "No!". Not knowing what horros I would find I rushed in and saw the poor dog sprawled in the living room, she had made it a few feet from her bed, crapped all over the carpet, and then fallen down in it. Not to sound unkind, but occasionally we have to leave her alone, and most of the time when we return, she's still asleep on her bed, and sometimes has gotten up and walked around the house. But we have come home to similar problems before. Huge nasty mess...

My husband is the official dog poop picker-upper, so I offered to close the garage door, which I rarely do because I'm only 5'1". We have two metal garage doors on tracks. Like an idiot I tried to hurry, and reached up for the door awkwardly because my damn car was too far back, and I grabbed it in the wrong place. The door is heavy and started coming down as soon as I touched it, and about 2 seconds later and a third of the way down, I realized my left hand was caught in it.

After the intitial stab of blinding pain, some logical part of my brain told me "Push the door back up in the oppsite direction, now!!", which I did and yanked my hand out, then the screaming began. My poor husband came running into the garage just as the door crashed down only to see me doubled over, clutching my hand and repeating "Oh, my god..." hysterically. I was afraid to look at it, and afraid to let go. I have a mortal fear of crushing parts of my body in doors or other moving objects. He knew what I was going through, because earlier this year (while transporting the dog to the vet), I shut one of his hands in the door of his car. (He had his hand wrapped around the area between the back and driver's door)

It seems that neither of us have managed to break anything in either accident, but my middle finger of my (fortunately) left hand is now hideously swollen and throbbing despite two Vicodin and several glasses of the Port. Now my biggest wish is that I don't lose my damn fingernail. I've never lost one in my life, and I'll completely freak out if I do. I can live with the pain, but the swelling and purple color are scaring me. Even my husband's hand didn't look this bad. I also seemed to have nicked the two adjoining fingers because they are sore and periodically throbbing, though right now it's hard to tell exactly where the throbbing is coming from.

So the remainder of the evening has been fairly non-productive on my part. The carpet was cleaned, all I did was run paper towels back and forth to the sink...

Whoa... headrush... I had to go lay on the floor for a few minutes with my feet on the couch, I felt really faint. I was going to try and shower and wash my hair before bed, but I think I'll skip it, don't want to fall and break my neck in the damn bathtub. The dog has been doing amazingly well, BTW, she's walked around some tonight, had some water and food. I think I'm going to try and go to sleep before my last painkiller wears off. More later...

Posted by Morticia at December 21, 2002 01:47 AM | TrackBack