Stitches

As my own little messuped-up way to ring in the New Year I spent four hours in the ER yesterday. I was cutting the last few plastic blocks for a study I'm conducting and since they are big blocks I opted to use the electric band saw in our department. It's pretty dangerous as you need to use a sharp-toothed blade to cut blocks as hard as the ones I had, but I've cut many blocks this way in the past with nary a problem. However, this time, with only four more blocks to cut, the block got jammed and my left thumbed slipped forward into the blade. The result was a fairly deep laceration of my thumb.

Of course I cursed, then ran around the hall way to room 23 where the Mount Sinai Hand Fellows just happened to be doing research with one of our medical students (I love working in orthopaedics). I told them I was cut very bad and they gave assistance immediately. They spent some time cleaning the wound and restricting blood flow so it would clot. During all of this, though, I forgot that I have a bad vaso-vagal resonse to pricks/cuts on the palms of my hands. Well, I didn't forget. I figured I just had to put my head down and bear it out. Apparently, that's not the best plan. The sweating and faint feeling that comes is from a lack of blood to your head. If the response is very strong you can pass out entirely, which is eactly what happened. Fortunately I was in a department with doctors all around me (not common for other research departments which don't have immediate clinical revelvance in the work they do). When I regained consciousness I was on the floor in the neighboring office and they had my legs elevated, which helped the blood get back to my head.

I headed down to the ER and spent a grueling four hours in pain before the cleaning, tetanus shot and stitching was all done. Fortunately the cut didn't go below the dermis, so I only needed two stitches, but the cut was over the tip of my finger and apparently the numbing of the thumb nerves doesn't really make it up that far. So, basically, I felt everything as they stiched me up. Thank the lord I only had to have two stitches. The other good news is that the cut missed both nerves, so I should have near perfect sensation in my thumb when I recover (which means I still feel the pain of soccer balls I deflect in goal - joy). The stitches come out next week. Looks like I'll be playing soccer in the field for awhile lest I rip my stitches open as a goalie. So, yeah, moral of the story...don't use the electric band saw to cut objects just because it's the quicker method. Safety first!