Blood Is Funny?

I have done the near impossible task of finding something that my husband is not good at doing. Blood. He gets faint at the sight of it... not on the television so much, but in real life for sure. The scene that unfolded last night made for, what I think, was a rather entertaining evening. It was funny after Nate panicked, I realized I would live... and I did not need stitches. (at least I don't think I do) I hear super glue works just fine for some cuts. I'll let you know how it works.

* If you have a weak stomach proceed with caution. No, I am not including pictures with this blog *

Anyway, I find it amusing that my husband, Nate, could land a full plane with both engines on fire without even breaking a sweat, but when he catches a glimpse of blood it sends him into a full on panic. I say this because that's what happened when he glanced at the inside of my fingertip last night. I screamed while slicing sweet potatoes (wedges are considerably more difficult to cut than just chunks), because I cut right into the side of my middle finger and nicked my ring finger, all at the same time, with a chef's knife... the sharpest chef's knife you've ever cut with too! Crud! The fact that I had just cut myself scared me more than anything, because I had no idea what I would see when I looked down at my finger. Then came the blood. Gallons of it. (That may be a slight exaggeration.) Nate jumps up from the computer to see what happened. (I knew he shouldn't have done that.) The first thing he did was freak out at what looked, to him, like a chunk of finger nail hanging from my fingertip, but I quickly pulled it off and showed him it was just a small piece of sweet potato. No harm there. After assessing the situation, I realized that I needed something to stop the bleeding... like paper towels for instance. While I'm thinking about stopping the bleeding, Nate is running around the apartment trying to figure out what to do. I asked yelled nicely "get me some paper towels please?!" I mean my finger is bleeding profusely, and it's about to get all over the place. First things first! Stop the bleeding. While I put pressure on my finger, Nate was online trying to find out if I needed stitches. Nothing like a little self diagnosis from the internet. The following discussion went a little something like this:

"Can you see bone or yellow, fatty tissue?"
"I don't know but I'm not going to look... I'd have to pull the cut apart. That would hurt."
"Oh gross." ( I think he almost puked here)
"Come and look."
"No way! I'm not looking."
"Me either. It's fine."
"Do you think we should go to the emergency room? We have insurance."
"No. I think it's fine."
"Are you sure?"
"No. (I meant yes.)"

After this going back and forth, Nate called him mother, who's a volunteer EMT. (Of course... there was a lot of panic and no action for the first few minutes after I chopped my finger. Why didn't we think of calling her sooner? Seriously, Nate would never panic if there was an emergency on an airplane under his watch!) Nate's mom pretty much talked us through the evaluation of the cut, and I decided no doctor was needed. Why call the doctor when you can just use super glue? I hear it works just fine... can't wait to see the results.

I quickly resumed helping finish dinner, which was so abruptly delayed by my awkwardness while cutting tubers. Always protect your fingers! Nate acted as if I had just lost a foot or something. If I even glanced at the knives he said "no, sit down", but I refused to be useless for the rest of the evening because of a "little" cut. He barely even let me use the grater to zest some lemon for the green beans. I mean when you fall off of a horse, you're supposed to get right back on it. Right? Nate can fly metal tubes in the sky for a living, but if I so much as slice my finger with a knife he panics. Funny how that works. I think I'd rather cut myself with a knife than have to fly a plane with a disabled engine any day. But hey, to each their own. I get my thrills by cutting with sharp chefs knives.

My thrill of choice

Nate's thrill of choice:

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Nate told me later that he thought the sweet potato under my finger nail was a piece of finger hanging off of my hand. Nice imagination.... I like it! This is the second time I've cut a finger badly while cutting a vegetable from the tuber family. You win some, you lose some. I'm hoping not to lose a finger one day. :)