Not for the squeamish

Well the long hours of work and planning and helping friends demo sheds and paper shuffling and biking and cooking and eating and cleaning have caught up with us and Dustin has relinquished his right to tell his story from last week.

**Note, the pictures are gross so beware if you are a little faint seeing blood...

So, last Friday I had worked the early shift and was back at home on a call with a virtual assisting client, so naturally my mobile was on silent, and as soon as I hung up, the home phone rang. (This is a phone that only people who have had a part in giving birth to one of us tend to use... that and wrong numbers, we get a surprising number of wrong numbers...)

Anyways when Dustin's voice was on the other end the confusion began.

"Hi, I'm at the hospital. Come here now."

"What happened??"

"I'm fine. Just come up here."

(Wheels spinning in my head...) "Are you sure? I think it will take me too long to bike because I've put my bike away."

(Surely wondering where his wife's concern for him has gone) "Ok just come over now."

End call.

(Me ringing back, still trying to process someone who is "fine" sitting in emergency, and me knowing all too well how long we'll sit there if he is indeed "fine"...) "Well should we just go to the urgent clinic?"

"Katherine! I'm at the hospital."

"Sorry. Ok, I will come right over."

End call.

(One more thing, I think... also aware that my presence will not do anything for him and whatever "fine" condition has him visiting ED... ) "Hold on, I am going to call insurance first so this all goes smoothly."

"No it's fine. I was at work. Stop phoning me!"

End call.

Ok, so I huffed and puffed up and down the hills in the  flip flops and cute dress I wore to work and arrived at the hospital to see Dustin's hand covered in gauze. After introducing him to my workmates behind the counter - one who advised me he now has extra bits! - I finally got the story.

Nail gun vs. thumb. The thumb doesn't stand a chance does it? Anyways, he sent me away with his boss to pick up the car from the work site and then I returned back to my love's side.

I couldn't look just in case I got sick. (Coming from someone who once fainted after trying on contacts for the first time. And also years after having my wisdom teeth removed, I picked my sister up from the same office where mine were taken out and just from the memory nearly fainted...)

This is what I would have seen:

Very lucky for Dustin, he wasn't feeling pain, mostly pressure. 

The nurse had misheard and thought she was coming to examine someone who had a nail in his bum. 

Dustin replied, "I wouldn't be sitting if I had a nail in my ass..."

That would have been very different...

The x-ray confirmed it missed the bone and tendon which was amazing. It was a pretty big nail. It also had a coating of glue on the end that is designed to be heated when it goes through the gun and thus dries after it's been nailed in. This made for difficult removal. The doctor (an Ontarian!) froze the thumb and Dustin said the shot hurt more than the nail. When they hooked Dustin up to the laughing gas he begin to narrate a bad medical reality show.

Here is one line that he said in front of my coworkers,

"Nurse says: It had been a slow day at Taranaki Base...

Narrator: until some dickhead shot himself with a nail gun."

Then the nurse brought out the rustiest medical pliers ever and had at it! It took some good yanking to remove the nail but there wasn't much blood. Dustin really wanted to say, "Don't make me insult you, just rip it out."

So a couple hours later, we went home, Dustin with a band aid on his thumb. But it was all better. Tender but could have been much worse. Sure put a stop to his run of years without any accidents requiring hospital visits though, this was the first in 8 or 9 years.

And luckily because in New Zealand, if you have an accident, no matter what it is, if it's an accident, they pay for your treatment whether you're a resident or not. So we didn't even have to pay or sort out insurance. (Which I momentarily forgot about when Dustin rang...)

His thumb just had little holes so you could hardly tell the trauma it had been through!

So to wind down the weekend we're going to the park to catch one of the Sunday movies. Tonight it's Anchorman. Outdoor movies are the coolest! And although I work at 5:30am tomorrow, it just sounds worth it to go for the fun.

Signing off from New Plymouth, two thumbs up!