2020-11-19 — Still Attached

Well, folks. It’s me again, dictating voice to text for today’s journal.

Why, might you ask? Well… It’s not because I’m late coming home from work and I’m trying to save time by dictating my journal. Would that were the case. 🙃

So… Sometimes I don’t make the best decisions. I know I know. I know y’all thought I was perfect. Sorry to disappoint. 😉

For some reason I woke up half depressed, for no reason at all, managed to run into somebody selling a pornographic poster while searching for land on facebook. Not sure how anybody can explain to me how a pornographic poster shows up for sale when you’re searching for acreage in Northwest Arkansas. Facebook really has to fix their search engine, apparently. Anyway, unfortunately, I was triggered enough that I ended up relapsing. Then I followed that up by getting in a fight with a chainsaw and losing, my left index finger getting all chewed up.

Honestly, it’s pretty much a miracle that I still have a finger. The chewed up flesh was about a half an inch deep or so. And a half an inch into a finger is quite far. Not only that, but it was at my knuckle, right on my knuckle. Amazingly, at least as best as my mom and the nurse practitioner at the urgent Care could tell, I didn’t slice through my tendon. The chewed up gash I think went down at just enough of an angle that though it was a half inch deep the angle kept it from going into tendon and bone.

Crazy.

The picture doesn’t do it justice. I would have to have had my knuckle bent to pull the gash apart so you can see how deep it actually was. And I’d probably have to irrigate out all the blood, so you could see deep inside. Pretty gnarly, though.

Anyway, it’s almost 10:00, so I’m going to call it quits for the night. Sorry about the short post.

#1. I’m grateful to still have a finger and that it has full range of motion. Right after the accident, the first thing I did was check my range of motion and I could move my finger just fine. That was comforting. Once the swelling started, which was within probably a minute, then it started to stiffen up super quickly but before it started to stiffen, I could move my finger without any issues.

#2. I’m grateful I didn’t have to wait for hours and hours at the urgent care.

#3. I’m grateful that the nurse practitioner was able to get it stitched back together. She had to cut away a bunch of the straggly flesh, but she was able to pull it together and stitch it up with eight stitches.

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#4. I’m grateful to have not had that much pain. When it first happened, I don’t think I felt any pain at all. It was just adrenaline or something. It didn’t actually start hurting badly until the numbing stuff wore off after it had already been stitched up. Though, I did feel the needle poke through as she was putting the stitches in, because the numbing didn’t numb everything. But still, I’m so so grateful.

#5. I’m grateful that this happened on a day when I didn’t have any jobs scheduled because I was taking the day off. I didn’t have to leave any customers hanging, nothing like that.

#6. I’m grateful that I was able to interview an applicant for the mobile mechanic position that I have listed. He seems like a really great guy, so I’m tentatively optimistic. He’s got a full-time job right now that he would be leaving to work for me, so we’re going to take it slow, and I’ll have him do some jobs next Saturday to see how things go. But I’m optimistic.

#7. I’ve been grateful to be back in touch with my friend Brittani today. We’ve been chatting on and off for a good chunk of the day, and it’s been great.

Well, my lovelies. Please send positive vibes, prayers, whatever over this way. Finger is super super painful if it gets even gently bumped, so I’m a little worried how sleeping is going to go tonight, but I’m already in bed, so I guess we’ll see shortly.

Loves and hugs to all y’all. 🙂

Lift the World.

~ stephen