SPURT

This little gizmo nearly severed the thumb on my right hand the other day.

It is a pill cutter.

My husband was using it to cut up the pills he takes for his heart. You should see the pills. They’re tiny little things – the size of an amoeba – you actually need a spectrum microscope to see them – and you have to cut the bloomin’ things into quarters. It’s so fiddly. I asked the doctor if they couldn’t just make them in a lower dosage but apparently they cannot.

I didn’t cut my thumb cutting the pills. I cut my thumb because my husband doesn’t need to take those particular pills anymore and me being the domestic goddess I am, oozing with all sorts of fabulousness, decided to clean the pill cutter before putting it away in the cupboard.

I’ll give you all a bit of advice. Do not just chuck a pill cutter into the general fray of the washing up and forget that it’s there and also forget it has a razor sharp stainless steel blade not a plastic blade as I thought.

Also, I am an idiot.

So there I was singing some show tunes ( I usually sing show tunes when I do the washing up. On this particular day the song in question was The Trolley Song) sink full of bubbles and hot water, the plates and cups swirling around getting all clean.

Clang, clang clang went the trolley, I sang. Ding, ding ding went the bell.

Rinse a plate. Stack a plate. Rinse a cup. Stack a cup.

The pill cutter lay at the bottom of the sink. Suddenly it was on me like the tiniest of piranhas, hacking away.

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley.

Spurt, spurt, spurt went my thumb.

It didn’t really hurt but there was blood everywhere. So much blood the world went red for a moment.

It’s funny. Nick and I were talking about screaming the other day and how we felt it was unrealistic when people screamed in movies or on TV because your average person doesn’t just scream at the drop of a hat. I claimed to have not screamed for about 20 years.

Well, I screamed a bit when I cut my thumb. Not in that Michael Myers from Hallowe’en is coming after me to cut me into little pieces with a kitchen knife kind of way you see in the horror movies; more in a half scream, half groan, half swear fest using every bad word you’ve ever heard in your life kind of scream.

There was so much blood it went all over the kitchen benchtops. The room resembled this afterwards – the perfect backdrop for a vampire flick.

I couldn’t stop the bleeding for over an hour. Usually a bit of pressure does the trick but because it was taking so long to stop I thought I might need stitches so I went to the medical centre up the road.  Here’s a tip for getting seen quickly at the medical centre – have a blood soaked towel wrap around your hand. I’m sure it works every time. Oh, and make sure the towel is white for a better effect.

I didn’t need stitches but the cut was quite deep so the doctor butterfly clipped it and bound it very tightly and KERPOW – finally stopped the bleeding. There was so much gauze and tape and bandage on that thumb I felt like Uma Thurman in Even Cowgirls Get The Blues or that little known superheroine who wanders the streets of Sydney – Mona Mega Thumb – gouging out the eyes of criminals with her bulbous opposable digits.

I took this shot with an X-Ray effect to highlight the mega-ness of the thumb.

Massive, isn’t it?

When your thumb is tender and possibly might start bleeding again if exerted it is very difficult to type and use a computer. It is well nigh impossible to use a mouse. But it is amazing how quickly the body heals. My thumb feels much better. However, I still haven’t taken the bandage off after three days. I am not usually queasy at the sight of blood but one thing I am not too keen on is the spurt.

So I think I’ll keep my mega thumb for one more day. And dream of superheroines on the Sydney streets.