I Don't Do Anything Halfway

[ladysprite]

Plan for tonight: finish making desserts for Crown Tourney - 3 more apple pies, another 70 shortbread cookies, and currant cake.

What really happened tonight: Spent 2 1/2 hours in emergency room getting my head sewn back together after trying to reenact the Birth of Athena using my own forehead and a particularly wicked-looking barbecue tool with a disturbingly sharp metal churchkey on the end.

I had started putting together the base ingredients for the currant cake, and was bending down to pick up an ingredient from the pantry floor. I didn't notice the Evil Barbecue Spatula Of Doom; it's been on the same shelf for two years. It noticed me, though, and I whacked my noggin on it but good.

And I figured that was it. Just a whack. I sat on the pantry floor, whining and cursing my stupidity and clutching my forehead, and my sainted husband came over to see what was wrong. "Just a bump," I said. "I'm being a baby."

"You're bleeding," he replied, and handed me a paper towel. And within a minute, I noticed that the blood had soaked through the paper towel and was running down my arms. A quick glance in the bathroom mirror showed me a gaping cut about as long as my thumb, and blood clotting in my eyebrow, and we decided that maybe I needed to go to the emergency room.

By the time we got there, I had bled through all of our gauze and several wads of paper towels. The triage nurse in the ER tried to reassure me that it couldn't be as bad as I had assumed, and that all scalp wounds bleed. Not for half an hour, I told her. You're disrupting the clot, she told me. I sighed and pressed harder.

Half an hour later, an assistant came to bandage it for me, so I could stop pressing. More gauze, wrapped and strapped around my head until I couldn't see through the layers over my eyes. That took almost 15 minutes to bleed through.

After another half hour, I was shuffled into a bed and a nurse came to look at the wound. When she started to take the bandages off, I warned her that it would be messy. She reassured me that there was no way it would still be bleeding. I told her it was, and she didn't quite scoff. Then she peeled the bandage back, peeked, and slammed it back down. "You've severed an artery."

It was awesome. There was spurting. I hope I never again have to experience the sensation of my own blood pooling in my ear as a physician's assistant desperately injects my head with lidocaine so she can try to find the responsible vessel and tie it closed.

Two and a half hours, one arterial ligation, nine stitches, and a lump the size of a goose egg later, and I am home. Somewhat woozy and giddy from shock and blood loss, and with what I hope is a rakish and piratical (not hideous and Frankensteinian) wound along my hairline above my left eye, and with orders to avoid strenuous physical activity for the next few days, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

Only me. Only I could manage to sever an artery in my forehead while baking a cake.

I'm just special that way.

Comments

[keshwyn]

...

Daaaaaayum. Wow. I'm glad you're ok. I've heard of extreme costuming before, but I'm pretty sure you didn't want to go as the victim of a zombie attack for Halloween...

I hope you heal quickly and as painlessly as possible. A pox on all vicious churchkeys!

[jtdiii.livejournal.com]

Damn,

And I thought I had cooking stories...

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

...wow. Glad you're okayish.

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

OhMyGawd. You *are* talented.

Please do get better!

[hungrytiger]

Wow indeed. Feel better and recover quickly.

You really should have some kind of "I've had medical training" card (veterinary would count for this) that could explain to the nurses that you actually know what you're talking about when you say that you're bleeding.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Ow! I swear, cooking is the most hazardous thing we do in this club. Feel better!

[pujaemuss.livejournal.com]

Very impressive. Makes me feel like a slacker for only having burns to show as cake-baking scars.

Hope you're better soon.

PJW

[pixel.livejournal.com]

That's...impressive.

I'm glad you're safely stitched up, and hope you feel better. Going to work the stitches into a costume for Saturday?

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

Ye gods, woman. I thought I'd reached some kind of creative-kitchen-usage peak the time I stood up under an open cabinet door and knocked myself unconscious, but...

Here's hoping they gave you some good meds! I know I'd rather expect them under the circumstances. :)

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Ow. Seriously ow. And dammit at the various ER personnel who told you you didn't know what you were talking about.

I hope you heal quickly and cleanly.

[tpau]

yeah see, when someone calls you and says "so we may have to put cooking on hold... really they need to START with "my wife is getting stitches" cause that is kinda much more important :)

lets hope this takes care of our quotient of kitchen injuries for the event. please? i mean really when i said you get to be my drop-dead deputy in the kitchen, that wasn't an instruction :)

[jdulac.livejournal.com]

good god! glad you are ok, but whew... let's hope it heals up quickly and painlessly!

[territan.livejournal.com]

You were ambushed by kitchen hardware. I'd call that extenuating circumstances.

Still, there was spurting blood. That's gotta count for something.

[madamruppy.livejournal.com]

Holy shit! I am so glad SOMEONE finally bothered to look at it. I'm glad you are going to be okay.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Wow! You are special!

I'm glad it looks like you're going to be (mostly) ok. I hope it heals up pretty well, with minimal scarring.

*hugs*

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

Holy carp! I'm glad you're okay(ish) and stitched up. Take good care, okay?

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

Ouch! Time to start working on combining the body modification with Halloween makeup...?

I do have a friend who has a quite an amazing level of clumsiness towards injuring herself; on one occasion, she managed to give herself a paper cut inside her nose.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'm very relieved to know you are well enough to type all this. I also commend your judgment in going to the ER.

Now please rest. That had to be a terrifying experience, for all that you turned it into a humorous post.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

First, take a picture of the bandages.

Second, just because *I* went to the ER before my last feast doesn't mean YOU have to.

Third, your last sentence pretty much sums it up.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Eeeek! Very glad you're (mostly) OK, hope it heals quickly... please be careful.

[citabria]

Wow, I hadn't even realized that there were arteries there! I'm glad someone finally took a look and that you're okay. Idjits.

So, do we at least get to see a picture of the kitchen tool that took you down?

[aries-walker.livejournal.com]

Think of all the cool stories you can concoct to explain the scar!

But seriously: I'm glad you're OK, even upbeat. Props to your husband for taking care of you.

..........

[johnprester.livejournal.com]

(stunned silence)

Okay, but OVFF was good, right?

(more stunned silence)

[bardling.livejournal.com]

...
I'm glad you are/will be ok.

I'd have thought you being a vet would've pulled some weight as an argument for "I know what I'm talking about"...

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Very glad that you got the care, finally, you needed. Having to lose that much blood to get it is a) not fun and b) not an appropriate sacrifice to the cooking gods.

[tafkad.livejournal.com]

Oh, Honey! Waaaah! I'm half in tears as I read this and just glad that they found the problem! I want to hug you for an hour!

[crash-mccormick.livejournal.com]

Totally awesom in the sorry to hear it way. Send photos :)

[catalana.livejournal.com]

That is definitely impressive. But, you know, I love hearing about your cooking adventures even when there *isn't* massive trauma involved. Don't feel the need to liven things up!

(I hope you feel better soon - I'll be sending good thoughts your way!)

[gmkieran.livejournal.com]

*hugs*, *hugs* and more *hugs*

[weasel2000.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, glad you are OK...Hope you feel better!

I have to say, I laughed when I came to the line "you've severed an artery" and you followed that up with "It was awesome." Not sure if I could have been that cool about it...

[arachne8x.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's an impressive story. Wish it hadn't happened to you. *hugs* I hope healing goes fast.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

Yow - I'm glad you're patched up, and I hope it is indeed quite piratical. And, really, "spurting" is kind of awesome in hindsight.

May this be the most injury you ever suffer cooking!

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Oh ow. I'm glad that they were able to stop the bleeding and make you properly piratical. I hope you are able to exploit it for a Halloween costume.

Having had a major forehead wound myself (slammed head first into a fireplace screen at high velocity) hopefully it will not scar very much, as mine did not.

*lots of hugs and a hand with the baking*

[moiramisu.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't even know there were arteries in the forehead. Aiee. Rest and eat lots of protein, but you know that. Take care, and comfort at least in the fact that you totally win at cooking stories.

[rms-butterfly.livejournal.com]

*hugs* So sorry to hear this! Take care.

Sorry I didn't get to chat at all at OVFF but glad you had a good time. I was at Reg table most of the con.

*hugs* again from all of us here.

[evcelt.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Glad you're OK... evil damned BBQ spatula!

::hugs::

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad I learned about this *after* the fact - damn shame *you* didn't have that option - and I hope you're better soon and heal fast.

(Um. That sounds redundant, but it's not, kinda. Better, de-stressed, no longer woozy - and then fast healing.)

[rabbitorf.livejournal.com]

ouch! Best wishes for rapid healing and no more cooking injuries.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Ow! Ow! Ow! Glad you went to the ER, and glad they eventually figured out there was a problem. Heal well.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

And only you could write it up in such a way that it's actually funny, without losing the essential scariness of it. Seeing this very late because I was on the road, but I'm glad you're okay!