My slightly clumsy 9 month pregnant self, combined with my keen sense of needing to be efficient (read that - do things very quickly, as Danny can attest - this isn't necessarily efficient in the long run), combined with my lack of formalized kitchen knife training has lead to two very minor accidents in the last few weeks, rendering me now a
cyborg.
This Friday night we had some friends over for shabbat dinner and I decided to give myself a break, make a super easy meal (that's right, tofu lasagna, my fav), and even cook everything the night before so I could come back from our Friday afternoon doctor's appointment (see
Bones and Boners below), make the salad, set the table and actually get in the shower before our guests arrived. Honestly, I was quite proud of myself.
So, Danny and I came home around 5:30. I told him - exhausted from the week (the poor kid gets up at 4:30am everyday) - to lie down for an hour while I made the salad, and then all he needed to do upon rising was a quick
shpritz of the bathroom, shower, throw on a clean shirt and be ready to bring in the sabbath by 7:30.
Easy peasy. Not so fast. (If only...)
I ran around a little, turned on the oven, put out some dishes, got together the ingredients for the salad and sliced....right off a very small piece of my left pointer finger. It was kind of amazing, actually. There it was - the tip, on the cutting board, next to the lettuce. I remembered how I had become a full on drama queen a few weeks ago upon slicing my finger during our
babymoon, so I breathed in and out (waking Danny, but just slightly), took a paper towel, applied pressure, elevated, and sat down. Despite my instincts, I sat down.
Here we go, I thought, I can do this. In just a few weeks I'm going to push a baby out of my vagina using self-hypnotic "numbing" - so let's test these techniques out. Sure enough, I breathed into the wound, I sat, breathed some more, I remained calm. Danny slept on. I sat for 10 minutes, loosened the pressure on the finger, and noticed I was still bleeding.
Danny's hour long nap time was just about over so I woke him up - bloody paper towel in hand, breathing techniques already out the window.
Sure, Danny's a doctor, but he's a PhD, not a physician, though he seems to play one now and then in a crisis. He ordered me to sit down and apply pressure for 25 more minutes...and just tell him what to do to get things ready for our guests.
This is my least favorite situation. I am basically relegated to the sidelines and to the position of water boy, but I also hold the play book (I know nothing about sports so I'm sure I mixed some metaphors just now). Sooo annoying! Painfully, and not calmly (or nicely), I micromanaged Danny through the making of the salad, the placing of the lasagna into the oven, and setting of the table.
Tensions were high - I was being horrible and he was exhausted - and after 25 minutes - I was still bleeding.
You need to put on more pressure, he said. And stop moving around. Just sit down.
He wasn't yelling, he wasn't being mean. But I was annoyed. I was hurt and frustrated. I felt powerless and in pain and worried that maybe it was a serious cut after all. There were spots of blood on my nice clean shirt, I was unshowered, the guests were coming in 30 minutes, and I heard in my head and projected into Danny's, how the fuck are we going to get through 6-24 hours of labor. How am I going to get through it physically and how are we as a couple going to do it emotionally?
Blocking out the fear of childbirth and demise of our marriage, I had an idea that maybe what was happening (as there really wasn't that much blood) was that the paper towel was sticking to the wound during the pressure applying period. So when I released the pressure I was also peeling off the paper towel which started the bleeding again.
We needed an alternative to the paper towel!
There was a small scuffle with a band-aid along with some yelling from me about this being his fault and why is he trying to hurt me.
Danny cut up some gauze, wrapped it around the finger and put on a band-aid.
To save the marriage we decided to wait for our friend - the surgeon - to come to dinner to make the next move.
Unshowered and with bad hair, we served dinner. My finger was throbbing but no longer bleeding, the gauze happily stuck to the open wound.
During dessert I consulted with the surgeon and practically teared up at the thought of having to rip the gauze off (I likened it to pulling your own tooth out).
He pointed out it was indeed a minor cut, the bleeding had stopped, and to just leave it until the morning. I had a fleeting fantasy of going into self-hypnosis and gently, peacefully (like my intended birth), removing the gauze in the morning.
I couldn't do it the next morning, or the next.
When Danny and I talk about it, we each say things we regret. He seems to think my hysteria drove us to this outcome - I say it was his "yelling." He says he was just being firm. I say bossy. I joke that I know everything - he doesn't disagree.
All the while, the gauze remains affixed to my finger - day 4. I'm now a cyborg - part human, part gauze.
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