My big sister got married last Saturday in our hometown. She looked beautiful. The ceremony was sweet. The reception was fun. The food was tasty. But that’s not what this post is about.
This post is about my thumb.
This wedding day started early on Saturday morning, as most DIY weddings do. After dragging ourselves out of bed with a mere 5 hours of sleep, we arrived at the wedding location around 8 am and began unpacking the decorations from our cars.
For those of you not familiar with Kentucky, it gets pretty chilly during the winter. Temperatures were in the 20’s overnight, meaning that everything in our cars was very cold. Keep this in mind.
So we’re unpacking and preparing the centerpieces, which are glass bowls to be filled with berries, pine cones, and candles. Apparently when very cold glass touches something warm, it shatters. So I pick up a bowl and it instantly shatters in my hand, taking a bit of my thumb with it. So there’s blood. A lot of blood.
One thing you should know about me is that whenever I cut myself badly enough to draw blood, the rest of my body goes into panic mode. The blood immediately drains from my face, I start shaking, and I come close to passing out. I learned this when I had to get some blood drawn a few years ago. I assured the nurse that I was fine at giving blood. I woke up to several nurses fanning me a few minutes later. My bad.
At least I know how my body is going to react at this point.
So here I am, standing in the lobby with a steadily bleeding thumb. I run to the bathroom to put it under some running water. I can feel my body going into panic mode. Blood drains from face. Body starts shaking. I’m sweating. (I’m a real treat when it comes to pain, as you can tell.)
Luckily, my mom knows my general reaction to blood, so she brought me a chair to prevent a fainting catastrophe. Many thanks, Mom.
Meanwhile, one of the other bridesmaids jumps into first-aid mode and makes a trip to the pharmacy to get supplies. She comes back with gauze, tape, butterfly bandages, and some powder that is supposed to instantly stop the bleeding. We used two packets of the powder. My thumb was still bleeding. And just for the record, that stuff stings. Real bad.
At this point, there’s talk of going to an urgent care center to get stitches. But after looking at my thumb and determining that there’s really nothing to stitch back together, we opted to just bandage it up and hope for the best.
So Elaine (the hero of the day, I must say) manages to get some butterfly band-aids on my ever bleeding thumb and wraps the thing in a big pile of gauze and tape.
I spent the next half hour laying on the couch with my thumb in the air while everyone else continued with wedding preparation.
I am an all star maid of honor.
In case you were wondering, a giant thumb wrapped in gauze can be easily hidden behind a bouquet of flowers during a wedding ceremony.
And it makes an excellent conversation piece with folks you haven’t seen in a while, airport security, and strangers on a plane.
For those of you who have been concerned about my thumb since the wedding last week, I’m thrilled to report that it looks quite a bit better, despite my increase in clumsiness over the past week. Have I ever slammed my thumb in my laptop before? No. Did I do it this week? Yes. Do I ever recall pushing my thumb straight into the car door? No. Did I do it this week? Yes.
I still get a little queasy when I take the band-aid off to clean the cut, but that’s probably more a sign of my wimpiness than anything else. And I’ve mastered the art of showering with a plastic bag around my thumb, secured with a nice rubber band.
At least I’ll always have a nice scar to remember Amanda and Adam’s wedding day.
Congratulations to my big sister and new brother-in-law! Love you both!
-Ally
Betsy Ringer says
I hope Eric is a good “nurse.” He’s had plenty of bloody incidences to draw experience from. My body is sort of like your…it’s not the sight of blood but ANY “procedure” or trauma to my body and I pass out. I gave blood once and long story short…they told me never to do it again!! It has something to do with low blood pressure and vegas nerve reaction:
Vasovagal syncope
Vasovagal syncope is a common cause of dizziness, lightheadedness, and fainting. The vagus nerve is overstimulated and causes the body’s blood vessels to dilate and the heart to slow down. This anti-adrenaline effect decreases the ability of the heart to pump blood upward to the brain. Without blood flow, the brain turns off. I
Some people faint at the sight of blood. Some parents faint when their child gets immunized. Many types of emotional and physical stressors can overstimulate stimulate the vagus nerve, thus causing dizziness, lightheadedness, and at times fainting (passing out).
Okay….more than you wanted to know. Hope you aren’t passed out right now!!