The injury

Written the morning after Mr. Right's injury. Its lengthy, so I'll post in 3 segments.

Yesterday was the scariest day of my life. My husband was out in the garage sanding table I had purchased at a thrift store. I was in the house cleaning and I thought I heard him say something. As I headed out that direction he yelled again “I need help.” I could tell by his tone something was desperately wrong – and immediately I wanted to panic. You see Mr. Right has hemophilia. An injury to him is far more dangerous than it would ever be for you and me.

As I opened the garage door I found him with his finger wrapped in paper towels, soaked with blood. “What do I need to do?” This was his first injury since we’d met. He said that he was light headed and I quickly saw that I needed to be the one giving orders, not the other way around.

I told him to sit down, so he wouldn’t further injury himself if he passed out. Then it clicked in my head. “Get in the car!” If he passed out, I would have no way of getting him into the vehicle. I went inside to pick up the necessities – his new insurance card (only 2 weeks old), my purse, and keys.

When I got back outside he was still walking around. “Get in the car!” Finally he complied. He suggested I get more towels for the bleeding, so I grabbed a roll, along with some bath towels I had set aside early that morning for rags.
I tried to fight the fear as I sped to the hospital. He told me several times that the main way I could help would be to get us there safely. At that moment, I topped a hill at full speed and was inches away from hitting the oncoming truck. (That particular road is very narrow.) To break the tension, I joked that if we were in a car wreck we’d get to the hospital quicker, but he was too upset to find any humor in that.

Half way to the hospital, he decided that the bleeding had stopped and the injury wasn’t as bad as he originally feared. He tole me to stop at CVS and pick up some peroxide and gauze and he would be fine. Since it was my first experience with an injury, I trusted his judgment. He’s been through this before and knows his body better than I do. Who was I to argue?

We both agreed not to tell his parents right away. They live a couple states away and worry about him too much. My parents were out of town and we weren’t going to tell them either – we didn’t want to ruin their trip since there wasn’t anything they could do to help any way. So when my sister called to chat about her bargain hunting trip to Target the night before, I wasn’t sure how to act. I did know that I had to play it cool in front of my husband for sure.

“Have you washed your flannel sheets yet?” She and I both had made trips to the store to get a set while they were on sale for $15.99.

“Yeah, I washed them up last night and got them on the bed this morning.”
“Okay, I just wondered because I think you have another set coming your way.”
“Two sets never hurt. That’d be handy as I’m changing sheets. You stay here. No, you’re not going in. STAY IN THE CAR!”

That last part of course was to my husband, who was convinced that he was okay to go in the drugstore with me. I was NOT having my man pass out in CVS. Of course once I got into the store, I had to fill my sister in on why I was yelling at him. She commented on how calm I was and I assured her that I was just faking it really well.