Archives: Slicing off the end of my finger - good times

This was taken two days later when I went to the
doctor to have the mesh crap removed. They
were laughing at me for taking pictures. I said, "Hey, it's
for my sadistic friends on Facebook."

~~ Originally posted as a Facebook Note on March 10, 2010 ~~

Okay, so here's the whole story, without the Facebook character limit. If there are any typos, please forgive me, it's a little hard to type without an index finger.

So, I finished Billy's quilt and still had a bunch of squares left and I wanted to do something with them. I decided to make a scrap quilt. In order to do that, I had to cut all the pieces into usable strips. I did just fine earlier today, using my crappy rotary tool. But it wasn't giving me clean cuts, so I opted to move to my good rotary tool when I was cutting strips tonight.

I had been working on this for about half an hour, was in the groove (despite the fact my blade fell off twice and I had to fix it ... that should have been a sign to stop, but did I listen, no). I make a cut, obviously not paying much attention and the next thing I know, I see something that looks like part of my fingernail pop across the mat. Oh, so I shaved off a fingernail, no biggie. Then I look at my hand. Uh oh.

I put my right hand under my left hand to catch the blood as I run downstairs to rinse it off (don't know why I did that, there is a bathroom not 10 feet from the room I was in) and wrap it before applying pressure. Scott asks what's wrong, I tell him I cut off the tip of my finger, and I hadn't even finished the sentence when he was on the phone, asking Mom to come over and sit with the Baby Girl, on the offhand chance she woke up. (We didn't see the point to wake her, but didn't want to leave Oscar in charge. He's been a punk lately.)

Off we go to the ER. The gal who checked us in was great. The nurse in triage was an idiot. She asked me if I smoked twice. Apparently I might have forgotten if I did or not in thirty seconds' time. She made me unwrap my finger to look at it, and as such, it starts throbbing again.

She takes me back to the room. We wait for a few and the doctor comes in. She's pretty cool. Accused me of making a mess of her room... well, whatcha gonna do? Once again, have to take the wrapping off the finger, the blood flow restarts and the pain returns. ARGH.

She informs me that there are no blood vessels in the tip, so there's no reattaching it. Great. And because it was a slice and not just a cut, she can't stitch it up. Translation: my left index finger will permanently be slightly disfigured. About a quarter of an inch of flesh on an angle. Eh, could be worse. Battle scars are cool.

The step she's going to take is put a tourniquet on my finger to stop the blood flow, and then she will use this stuff that will clot as soon as it gets wet. Coolness.

Off she goes to get her stuff. She's gone for quite awhile, so I lay down and watch as Scott reads comments to his post about us being in the ER. We hear the doctor just outside the door with the Physician's Assistants (which she told us she'd be bringing them in) and she says, "You guys have got to see this." No, I'm not kidding. As they walk in, I sit up and scare the poor PA, thought Scott said she was freaked out because we were laughing so much.

They get started on what they are going to do, and then she puts that mesh-clotting-magic stuff on my finger. She could have warned me it was going to sting like a mother scratcher. We get it all taken care of, cracking jokes the whole time. I'm sure they thought I was on something, but, well, you know what they say: Those who can laugh at themselves never cease to be amused. Besides, if I didn't laugh, I'd cry.

Then I had to get a tetnus shot, but the guy was awesome because I didn't feel it. Of course, the true test will be how sore my arm is tomorrow morning! Of course, I would have loved that guy regardless cause he brought me 800mg of Motrin, and for that I was thankful.

He told me we had to wait 15-20 minutes to make sure I didn't had a reaction to the shot. Unfortunately a drunk dude in handcuffs came in and distracted everyone, so he forgot about me. Finally Scott went out to make sure they remembered we were alive and they discharged me. The gal at the check-out desk asked us what we were laughing about the whole time, so I had to go through the whole spiel again, but I said, "Wouldn't you rather us laugh than scream bloody murder?" She told us a few stories about her nights in the ER, and one time she sliced her finger open. Good times.

Side note: They kept handing me forms to sign. But since I'm left-handed and I managed to do this to my left hand (because, oddly enough, I cut with my right hand), I laughed and handed all the forms to Scott.

Side note #2: Nancy at Sew-A-Lot just gave me a lesson on rotary cutting last Monday. Apparently I'm not a very good student.

Side note #3: Remember the drunk dude in handcuffs I mentioned? Seven cop cars in the hospital parking lot as we left.

Lover's spat

I got in a huge fight tonight. It pissed me off so bad. I yelled, I screamed, I ripped things in half.

All because my sewing machine and I could not see eye to eye. Believe me, if I had the money, I'd dump that piece of crap and move on. Really.

I didn't think I asked too much of it. All I wanted was for it to go in a straight line. But no, damn machine was drunk off its ass or something. (How much liquor does it take to get an inanimate object drunk, I wonder?)

I wanted it to complete the stitches. But no. The bobbin ran out of thread. Just like a man, running out of steam before you finish the job. I mean, honestly...

I wanted a decent-looking stitch as the top-stitching for the blanket I was making. Nope, couldn't even do that, not even with 49 stitches in memory. True to form, plenty of worthless stuff in its "head" but nothing of value.

You know what the worst part is? (Too bad, I'm going to tell you anyway.)

Just today I decided I was going to open an online shop and sell some of this stuff, mainly because I don't see the point in making it just to have it pile up. At that point it's no better than the stock-piling of fabric I've already got. Could that little machine help me make ANYTHING of value to sell? No. It's going to make me look like a fool in public.

Stupid little Brother.

Two college degrees and still I can't operate a sewing machine

Okay, so in the quest for a new hobby, I decide I'll try sewing. I can make blankets and stuff, and maybe even sell them! (HAHAHA!)

Yesterday I went to Hobby Lobby and bought fabric. What an escapade that is. Note to self: Next time you need fabric, try Jo-Ann's or Hancock. But I got a few things to do some starter projects with and some thread.

I talked my mom into letting me confiscate her old sewing machine. After all, she has a brand-new, fancy-shmancy machine that cost a lot of money (exactly how much she won't say), and she needs to use it. She warns me that the fabric doesn't move like it's supposed to, but I figure, pshaw, I can pull fabric through a sewing machine without a problem.

Before I can even try to move the fabric, I need to move the piece that my mom always keeps under the presser foot and I can't seem to manage that. I finally figure that out, and put my own fabric in the machine.

Put my foot on the pedal and off we go.

Or not.

There are holes in my fabric, but no thread. WTF? While the needle was threaded when Mom gave me the machine, my fighting with the fabric to get it out from under the presser foot must have unthreaded the needle. So, I attempt to thread the needle, which I managed to figure out without too much trouble.

Whew, crisis number one averted. Put the fabric back under it and off we go. But I've got killer loops on the bottom. WTF did I do now?

I try to adjust the tension on the machine, but that doesn't do a damn thing. I call Mom and tell her that I hate her machine. She laughed and said the bobbin on it has always been difficult as hell. So I go back upstairs and attack the bobbin with reckless abandon. It took me reading the instructions three or four different times before they made sense, and I get the bobbin to thread correctly. (For the record, as a technical writer for six years, I can tell you that a) these instructions sucked and b) short of the documentation I've written, I've never spent this much time with documentation in front of me.)

I do a Google search about threading machines and bobbins. As it turns out, I threaded the needle wrong, I completely missed the tensioner. Ha, maybe that's why the tension doesn't change.

I'm thrilled. Now I have the bobbin and needle threaded correctly, maybe now I can actually sew a straight line without a "birdsnest" on the bottom. I put my fabric under the needle, my foot on the pedal and off I go... straight into another birdsnest. ARGH.

I call Mom and tell her how much I hate her machine. Again. She laughs at my stories and then proceeds to tell me it sounds like a tension problem. I said, "I know, but no matter what I change the tension to, it still does it." She tells me that in order to change the tension I have to do more than just move the dial - and once again (for like the tenth time) she tells me to read the book. I have been reading the book - but I guess I assumed changing the tension would be easy. Guess not.

I haven't made it back upstairs to adjust the tension. I don't really want to. I want to take this stupid machine out into a field with a baseball bat and "Damn, It Feels Good to be a Gangsta" playing in the background.