Ouch!

*******WARNING *************
Graphic images of flesh wounds.

"Do you wanna go to the ER?" my husband greeted me when I answered the phone this afternoon.

"What happened now!?!"

"I sorta drove a nail through my thumb with the air nailer."

And so began my second trip to ER this week.

A few days ago Jed was coughing up blood. Lots of blood. It had happened a couple of months ago and his doctor told him to come in if it happened again. Turns out the back of his nose is all raw and bleeding and as it drained down his throat, he was coughing it back up.

The doctor showed me his throat and although I'm not really into blood, it was quite interesting to watch the blood flow like a waterfall down the back of his throat and Jed couldn't even tell it was happening.

Dr Roe suspects it could be from his asthma inhaler and went on to explain the different types of puffers and what each does and changed him from an orange one to a blue non steroid one.

It only took 3 and half hours of sitting in a chair to find all that out. Well actually Jed went for chest xrays and stuff but I sat in a chair for 3 and a half hours. I actually slept in that chair, except every time Jed realized I was sleeping he'd say, "Mom! Wake up. You can't sleep in the hospital." I was unable to convince him that you are supposed to sleep in hospitals - that's what they are for."

Jed displays his vial of blood
while awaiting the results of his chest xray:

Yes, I can sleep sitting in a chair:

When I arrived in the ER today, Alb was just checking in. He, thoughtful of those around him, had a cloth draped over his hand to disguise the gruesome image even though it was not bleeding. I was surprised to see the cloth on his right hand.

On the way to the hospital of course all sorts of scenarios play through your head. But I thought it would definitely be his left hand that was injured because he would normally hold the air gun with his right hand. I thought that even if he lost his whole thumb, at least he would still be able to play the guitar without a left thumb.

Then I silently apologized to God for all the times we've joked about needing to be missing a body part to be a grandpa in this family.

Grandpa and Jed had brought Albert in to the hospital (Alb had been building a wall in his Dad's basement) so there were the four of us standing at the triage desk while he was admitted. I gave Jim's name and info as an alternate emergency contact. This offended Jed.

"I could be the contact," he says.

The nurse was very patient and understanding and said, "Do you want on here. I can add your information." And she proceeded to take his info.

So Grandpa pipes in, "I'm his Dad. My name is Ernie." And so Grandpa got his info added to the records as well. It was all quite funny and the nurse joked about seeing if anyone else in the waiting room wanted on the list.

When you have a 3 inch barbed nail sticking through your thumb, you don't have to sit in the ER waiting room, they take you right in to a treatment room.

The x-ray showed that the nail had just grazed along the bone so it was not nearly as bad as it looked, or as it could have been. So they gave him a tetanus shot, froze his hand and looked around for a pair of pliers to pull it out with. Not finding any pliers they used their largest tweezers, and with a little wiggling out came the nail and a gush of blood. But the blood stopped before too long with some applied pressure and stitches were not needed.

And voila! We were out of the hospital in time for Albert to attend his music practice at 7 o'clock. Sans guitar.

***Graphic pics below***