Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is the Devil's hand

Up until this year I have never had to go to the hospital, except for two occasions when I was suffering from illnesses that I would have ordinarily gone to my general practitioner for but found myself out of town on a Sunday.  I refuse to count them as legitimate “hospital” trips.  Then, as most of you know, three months ago I was surprised to find myself in the middle of an epic cat war which resulted in Stella, the losing cat, going to live with my parents and my sustaining a wicked bite from the cat that I didn’t send away.  The bite put me in the hospital for two days and forced me to have emergency hand surgery, a pic line put into my arm so I could give myself IV antibiotics for an additional two weeks, and the unpleasantness of having to find ways to clean myself without getting my right hand and left arm wet.

At least it wasn't the left one

Don’t I look gorgeous?

Though I lost my bragging rights to never having been to the hospital I knew that I wouldn’t be going back any time soon.  As Halden luck would have it, I should have known better.

This afternoon at work I tasked myself with creating new file cabinet labels after spending four days reorganizing everything.  I had already typed up the labels and printed them on card stock so all that was left to do was to cut them up on the paper cutter and stick them on the drawers.  Can you see where I’m going with this?  As I was quickly cutting out the labels I remember thinking to myself, “Hey, that was pretty unsafe – I should remember not to do that again.”  Ten seconds later I was looking at my hacked finger and wondering how the hell I managed to slice through the nail so easily.  After that I went into a weird panic/shock.  I wrapped a Kleenex around my finger, licked the blood from my other hand so as not to let anyone know what I did (I know – stupid and gross), ran into a co-worker’s office and in a super cheery voice with a manic grin on my face practically yelled, “HI TOM!  I THINK I NEED SOMEONE TO TAKE ME TO THE ER!”  I think I even suggested taking a cab when he didn’t answer right away.  Luckily there were enough people around who weren’t running on an adrenaline/shock high to figure out who would take me to the hospital.  I was very fortunate not to need stitches and the doctor wrapped some special tape around the tip of my finger that will last several days so I won’t have to look at the nail (I get the willies just thinking about it).  I’m back to having to find ways to keep my hand dry while I clean up but at least this time there is no medication involved.

Number 1 idiot

Should I tempt fate and say that this is definitely my last trip to the hospital for the next several years?  Probably not, but I will at least vow to never put my hands in the middle of a feline battle royale and never EVER use the paper cutter again.