Uncle Roger's Notebooks of Daily Life

Slitting My Wrist

I've had it. I just can't take it anymore! I can't go on! Goodbye cruel world!

Just kidding! But I did slit my wrist...

I once told a friend that I had gotten a girl knocked up. "Luckily," I added quickly, before the heart attack set in, "it was Rachel."

It was Sunday night, the kids were in bed, and I was taking out the garbage. Being the Thanksgiving weekend, we had a lot of trash. A lot from cleaning the house as well as from the big dinner. I took the last bag of actual garbage (as opposed to recycling or composting) out and put it in the can. I then started to push it down, hoping to crush things that were crushable to get it to fit better.

Unfortunately, one of the crushable items in there was a wine glass that had cracked. It went POP! and my wrist went swish! and I looked down to see a whole lot of blood coming out of a cut nearly two inches long. I walked into the house, into the kitchen, and told Rachel "We need to go to the hospital." as I began washing it off. That hurt, so I stopped and asked her to go get the gauze pads out of the bathroom. She did and I did my best to get the bleeding to at least slow down.

Rachel was pretty freaked, but she managed to get the kids up and ready to head out. We loaded them in the car and started off to the hospital. I drove because I was the calmest of the bunch (with the exception of Sara who was fast asleep) and because I am the fastest -- I once beat the ambulance from our house to the same hospital. Meanwhile, I told Jared I wanted him to come along so I wouldn't be scared. (I've found that turning things around like that produces the desired behaviour more often than just telling kids to behave.)

Once there, I parked -- found a spot right across from the emergency room, a miracle in San Francisco! -- grabbed Jared, and headed in to get started. Rachel followed shortly with Sara fast asleep in the stroller. It didn't take long for me to see the triage nurse who basically sent me on in. At this point, Rachel and the kids retired to the waiting room to, well, wait. Once inside, (luckily, not the same room my dad was in,) I lay back and waited. I got a tetanus shot and then some x-rays to see if there was any glass in the wound (there wasn't). Then they numbed the wound, cleaned it out, and started to sew it up.

It turns out the cut was over an inch and a half long and nearly a half inch deep. It took six or seven stitches (I'm not sure; I was doing my best to pretend I wasn't there) to sew it up, and I get to keep it wrapped up for two weeks. With my luck, I won't even get a decent scar out of it.

[ Posted: 07:00 | home | print ]

Damn. I learned the hard way about garbage too although not nearly as much damage. I cut my thumb open on a can lid while pushing the garbage down and didn't think it was bad enough for the e.r. I still have the scar over 35 years later. It was bad enough. Another time the boys' dad thought he had killed a wasp and instead of flushing it, dumped it in the garbage. I put my hand in, screamed, and threw the garbage across the room. What is it with garbage cans? On the bright side, Jared will have an opportunity to take care of you and I bet he'll be good at it.

Posted by Ann Adams

I probably ought to ask you, since we`re neighbors now -- which ER do you recommend? Fortunately, the only member of our household who required emergency medical treatment so far was our parakeet -- but I don`t think the after-hours pet hospital would treat any of my kids. Hope your hand feels better!

Posted by L.

Jared is pretty helpful, and he keeps asking if my hand is okay. I think it's concern -- at least I'm hoping he's not been traumatized by the whole thing. The worst part of it all is that I really do know better.

Posted by Uncle Roger

Which ER you pick is usually up to your insurance, unfortunately. If, however, you have a choice, California Pacific on Buchannan and Sacramento (near Japantown) is where we've gone the last few times. They seem pretty good. Growing up, we spent more time in St. Mary's ER than out of it and they were pretty good too. (That's over by the end of GG Park, on Stanyan). For gunshot wounds and other such serious trauma, SF General has a lot of experience and is (I'm told) top notch; anything else, however, you want to stay away. Hopefully, however, you won't need it.

Posted by Uncle Roger