The injury part 2

Continued from what I wrote the morning after...

I got back to the car and headed home. Neither of us had eaten all day, so he asked me to stop at Taco Bell. Since it was so late in the day I hoped it would help with the lightheadedness. Slowly the shock began to wear off and his finger began to throb. He’s a tough guy, so when he says he is in pain, I know it must be pretty bad.

Once we got home, he unwrapped his finger and made me look at it. I was convinced that the sander had gone straight through to the bone and taken off the tip of his finger. I put a ratty old blanket down on the couch and gave him the remote control while I “unloaded the car.” I quickly called my sister back to ask if she thought I should insist he go to the hospital. She told me to take him on this time. Better to be safe, and if he was fine I could always just use this as a reference point for the future.

A few tears and a “please” was all it took to convince him to go to the hospital. Oh, and me telling him our insurance doesn’t charge for true emergencies. (God has already forgiven me for that lie.) I had asked him if he wanted to go to the local ER or to the University hospital. While I trust the University more, they are also an extra 15 minutes away. So we went local.

“This is gonna be free right?” He said as we were walking in the door. I just kept walking. “Did you lie to me.” Again silence. “Brooke?”

“My husband has hemophilia and is bleeding from an injury.” Then I gave the desk worker his name and began to fill out the paperwork. Too late for him to turn back.
While we were waiting, a woman was wheeled out from the back. We overheard her on her cell phone asking someone to pick her up. That apparently failed, because then she turned to me and asked me to take her home. I quickly let her know that I was here for an emergency and wasn’t abandoning my husband to take her home. She then started yelling across the lobby asking anyone who would make eye contact to take her home.

Once we got back to see the doctor, we quickly learned that I had made a good choice, and a bad one. The staff was nice and attentive, but they had no clue how to treat someone with hemophilia. They also didn’t have the factor he needs for an injury on site.

When he came back from x-ray, my decision to take him to the ER was validated – he had an open fracture. While I was wrong about him clipping off the bone, the skin was so mangled the bone was exposed. They were hesitant to clean it, afraid that they would cause him to bleed more. However they did soak it in iodine and prescribe antibiotics to keep it from getting infected. He was instructed to follow up with his doctor on Monday, but if he bled through the bandage before then to head straight to the University ER.

We got home around 10 and I started tiding up a few things that I had dropped when the accident happened. As I put my cold taco in the microwave (I still hadn’t had a chance to eat it), he yelled for me to come into the other room. He held up his finger for me to see – it had already bled through the bandage. I changed back into my clothes (I had already gotten into my pjs. He assured me this visit would take awhile so I gathered up some reading material for both of us.

He turned out to be very wrong. Our 2nd ER visit of the day could have easily set a record for quickest non-life threatening emergency room visit every. We were in, out, and back in our car by 11:30. Apparently the local ER had misunderstood the University’s instructions. As soon as the University doctor saw Mr. Right, he said that it should have bled thru some but that it hadn’t bled enough for him to need treatment.

This morning, as my man lies beside me sleeping in bed, I’m still concerned for him. But I’m also thankful. The injury could have been much worse.