Another [not so fun] first

Apparently this is a week of 'firsts.' On Monday night I was decorating the house for fall. Yes, I am aware that it is a little early, but the cool temperatures demanded some fall foliage to show up in the house. I was nearly done with my first round of decorating when I headed to the china cabinet to grab a vase. In a split second a huge shard of glass from the door panel went flying towards the floor, but before it hit, it left a nasty gash in my leg.

I'll admit, I'm a klutz and have endured my share of cuts, scrapes and many bruises, but a deep puncture wound? Nope. New territory to me. I was home alone at the time - fighting to keep a paper towel on the wound and keep blood off the floor - so I had to make the call to Paul to "come home now!" Of course his office is a good 15+miles away, so it took him a few minutes to get home.

After he arrived, I moved my 'bandage' of 3 paper towels and I knew immediately that we needed to seek medical help. Paul agreed after looking at the glass shard and relizing that it was missing some pieces. I did not want to believe that there was glass stuck deep in my leg, but I also couldn't bear the thought of 'doctoring it' at home.

To make this incident even more complicated, we had not yet received his new company's medical insurance cards. All we knew was the name of the company. After calling their 1-800 number (which Paul had to call his boss to locate), we discovered that it's after their office hours and they could be of no help (stupid computer answering thingie!). So with no insurance information, we drove to the closest urgent care.

Thankfully the urgent care wasn't busy and they saw me quickly (which I knew would not be the care at the closest Emergency Room). The first thing I learned was that I needed a tetnus shot. This news brought on the 'water works' as I am a horrible shot taker. Horrible! Here we are sitting in the examination room, Paul, me and a nurse and I'm near bawling! They haven't even looked at my wound yet! And I'm making a scene about needing a shot. Thankfully the doctor throughly numbed the gash area before he set out locate the missing pieces of glass. Lets just say that the largest piece of glass was impressive. I did not watch. Paul stopped watching and found a chair across the room. The silly thing, we watch ER and Grey's but cannot watch this live, real show!

So, 6 external stitches and a few internal stitches later, they send me home. Well, after the dreaded tetnus shot. Which did not hurt at the time, but now that area of my arm is pretty sore. I am walking around (and going to work!) because I'm not going to let a few stitches keep me down! I am, however, going to take it super easy and stay away, far far away, from all other glass front cabinets for a very long time.