MaggieMae
Reality bits
- Apr 3, 2009
- 24,043
- 1,635
- 48
Yikes. This is something I should know by now, but if I ever did, I forgot.
I cut my thumb (minor one) a few hours ago on the edge of the lid off a can, but it was beneath my nail and so I couldn't get at it to compress it enough to stop the bleeding. It was one of those projectile spurts that first went all over the countertop (as well as my lunch), then as I frantically tried to tear off enough paper towels to at least hold the bleeding back, within seconds my kitchen began to look like a scene out of "Saw."
Proceed to bathroom and rummage underneath sink for box of bandaids I KNOW are in there somewhere, but exactly where is the question. More blood. The trail is getting longer. Find the bandaids, and can't get one open using my teeth. I also have no gauze bandages, which of course is what I would need for a cut I can't even get at. I thought for a moment that stopping the bleed would be easy if I just clipped the nail back, but the damned thing, no more than a half-inch long and a millimeter deep, is gushing like I'd hit an artery, so taking time out to do that was not an option.
I finally remembered I had once bought a small bottle of "liquid bandaids" purchased not for the purpose of using for an injury, but I had the not-so-brilliant idea that this "new skin" (so it's called) might do the trick to hide a few wrinkles. (It did, but it also stung like hell. Another story.) I found that in with my makeup, of course. Right where one would expect to find liquid bandages.
So I held my thumb upright, and pressed hard against my thumbnail with a cloth, then quickly put a big drop of that stuff in the "wound," which immediately stopped the bleeding. Voila!!
I'll tell ya, you think the older you get, you must know how to deal with all such minor incidents automatically. Obviously not. I'll know what to do the next time this particular thing happens, but of course it won't. I guess the moral to the story is be prepared for all sorts of emergencies, but remember where you put the supplies for said emergencies including some sort of tool to use that would temporarily do the job your thumb would normally do but can't if that's what's causing the problem in the first place.
I cut my thumb (minor one) a few hours ago on the edge of the lid off a can, but it was beneath my nail and so I couldn't get at it to compress it enough to stop the bleeding. It was one of those projectile spurts that first went all over the countertop (as well as my lunch), then as I frantically tried to tear off enough paper towels to at least hold the bleeding back, within seconds my kitchen began to look like a scene out of "Saw."
Proceed to bathroom and rummage underneath sink for box of bandaids I KNOW are in there somewhere, but exactly where is the question. More blood. The trail is getting longer. Find the bandaids, and can't get one open using my teeth. I also have no gauze bandages, which of course is what I would need for a cut I can't even get at. I thought for a moment that stopping the bleed would be easy if I just clipped the nail back, but the damned thing, no more than a half-inch long and a millimeter deep, is gushing like I'd hit an artery, so taking time out to do that was not an option.
I finally remembered I had once bought a small bottle of "liquid bandaids" purchased not for the purpose of using for an injury, but I had the not-so-brilliant idea that this "new skin" (so it's called) might do the trick to hide a few wrinkles. (It did, but it also stung like hell. Another story.) I found that in with my makeup, of course. Right where one would expect to find liquid bandages.
So I held my thumb upright, and pressed hard against my thumbnail with a cloth, then quickly put a big drop of that stuff in the "wound," which immediately stopped the bleeding. Voila!!
I'll tell ya, you think the older you get, you must know how to deal with all such minor incidents automatically. Obviously not. I'll know what to do the next time this particular thing happens, but of course it won't. I guess the moral to the story is be prepared for all sorts of emergencies, but remember where you put the supplies for said emergencies including some sort of tool to use that would temporarily do the job your thumb would normally do but can't if that's what's causing the problem in the first place.