Who needs fingers anyway?

Today's story starts around 11am, when Kate woke me up about an hour earlier than I was planning.  She was holding David in a contorted way between her arms, and her left hand was grasping her right index finger.  "What's wrong?" I said.  She replied, "I cut myself on one of the kitchen knives."

So I held David while Kate continued to hold pressure.  After about 20 minutes, the bleeding stopped, and we tried peeling back the Kleenex that was acting like gauze to assess the damage. The wound started oozing pretty badly again, so we thought it best to take a ride over to our favorite ER for a professional assessment.  As I was packing David into the carrier, I noticed Kate looking in the sink. She pointed to what I thought was the white part of a green onion that had been cut on a bias.  On closer inspection, it turned out it was her fingertip.

Though it was smaller than the size of a dime, we wrapped the fingertip in some wet gauze, put it in a Zip-Lock bag, and headed to the ER.  The doc cleaned the wound, put a tourniquet on Kate's finger to help reduce the bleeding, and numbed it with a very painful injection; finally, a nurse wrapped it with a hemostat dressing and sent us on our way.  We have to go back on Thursday to have the dressing changed out.

Now Kate has a wad of gauze covered by a soft plastic shell on her index finger.  It'll probably be there for two weeks or so.

I'm fairly convinced that this was Kate's way of getting out of various chores around the house.  Since she can't get the dressing wet, this means no more cleaning bottles, bathing David, etc.  (Ironically, Kate was doing the dishes when she cut herself earlier!)

On top of all of this, when I came on duty for the night shift, David began screaming bloody murder and nothing seemed to help soothe him.

It's been an interesting day.

But since you came here to see a picture of the little buggar, here's one taken while we were at the ER: