This is just not my week.

Life was finally returning to some semblance of normal today. I managed to get home in under 2 hours of traffic and even early enough to see my husband before he left for work. While I was waiting for him to finish getting ready in the other room, I decided to start unloading the dishwasher and grabbed a pyrex bowl to put away.

At some point someone told me that pyrex bowls didn’t break if you dropped them. I have disproven this myth multiple times, but none quite as spectacularly as today. In a single moment I somehow dropped the bowl and then lifted my foot and stepped on a huge shard of glass. When I looked, I had a piece of glass, at least an inch and a half long hanging out of my big toe. Honestly, I don’t even know how my foot lifted up and landed on glass, it happened that quickly.

I plucked the glass out and well, there was blood. Lots and lots of it. I sat in the entry way holding pressure on it while my husband tossed my curious cat in the bathroom and started sweeping up the glass on the floor (somehow, he managed to sweep up the glass, but not a single other crumb on the filthy floor. That might need to be added to the special skills section of his resume.)

10 minutes later it was still bleeding. 15 minutes later, still bleeding.

My husband had to leave for work and since I didn’t want to ride 30 minutes to his hospital, I drove myself (even though the cut was on my right foot) to the nearest Urgent Care center.

After a pretty substantial wait, I was taken back, and the nurse took a look and decided to soak my foot in a betadine solution while I waited for the doctor. The doctor came in and did the obligatory cringe at the cut. It was really pretty damn deep. She poked around at it and decided that it was definitely deep enough that it needed stitches.

But here’s the thing, I’ve never had to get stitches before. I may break bones like it’s my job, but I have never cut myself and gotten stitches. And I am quite proud of this. And also stitches totally creep me out.

So I suggested glue. She thought for a second and said it sounded like a good idea to her, especially since she didn’t really like placing stitches anyway. It was pretty much the first bit of good news I’ve gotten all week. I would’ve kissed her on the lips, but that’s not really my style.

About an hour later they had done a high pressure flush of the cut (OUCH), glued it and bandaged it and I was on my way with instructions to keep it dry and to try to stay off of it. Which is exactly what I can’t do during a clinical rotation. I can get it into a shoe, so my goal is to work a half day tomorrow since I know that standing on it all day is going to suck pretty hard core. We’re short a few people, so it would be a problem if I took the whole day off, even though neither of my clinical instructors will be there. It’s tempting to just stay home and sleep the rest of this week away, but I don’t want to leave anyone else in a lurch. Being responsible sucks.

I have to keep it dry for several days, keep it elevated and check for infection, but otherwise, like other things in my life, this should heal with time.

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