23 stitches later...

There are some gory pictures further down so...just sayin'...

Sunday I headed into the city in the truck to pick up the landscape blocks and a light table from our friend's studio, the one that is getting evicted after 40 years. Then the plan was to head to my daughter's house to shower and change and go out for lunch and to see the opening play at the Main Street Theater for which she had two comped tickets as she knew one of the actresses and the director plus where she works is where the theater gets all their printing done.

I say was because things didn't go exactly as planned. I had about 2/3s of the landscape blocks in the truck when I stepped off the side of tailgate backwards, something I had been doing all morning and have probably done a million fucking times, and somehow managed to dig the sharp corner of the tailgate into the thigh of my left leg ripping up a 2” triangle of skin and leaving behind about a teaspoon of fat and tissue. If I hadn't been wearing shorts or even shorts that came to my knee I might have just ripped the cloth and gotten a deep scratch. But no, because that's not how I roll.

the culprit

It didn't really hurt, though I knew I had hurt myself, then I looked down at the blood running down my leg and OH FUCK, smashed my hand down on the tear to staunch the bleeding and hobbled into Gene's studio where we got a good look at it and it was horrible though not really bleeding at that point. So I called my daughter and told her I couldn't go to the play, that I was in trouble and needed to go the emergency room, and could she come get me. Which she did and took me to the nearest medi-clinic.

As it turned out, the doctor that stitched me up was my previous primary care doctor who retired from his private practice two years ago to work at an emergency clinic. I was lucky, he said, had it gone any deeper I might have damaged muscle or torn a tendon. So, 3 stitches inside to bring the tissue together and try to minimize the divot I'm going to have in my thigh and 20 stitches to close up the flap of skin.

the wound

stitching up the tissue

tacking down the skin

stitching up the edges

all done 

Brian, Gene's friend who was there to help get the light table into the truck, looked at the pictures and said, 'you know what this means, right? In a past life you were attacked by a chicken and it really messed you up.

So, stitched and bandaged, Sarah and I went on to the play because that's also how we roll. It still didn't hurt, there was some sensation but not what I would call pain.

stage set for The Revolutionists

After the play we dashed back over to Gene's to get the light table in the truck, Gene had been kind enough to load all the rest of the landscape blocks for me, and then we went for an early dinner since we had missed lunch and then I headed home.

Once home and on my couch I sort of gave in to the stress, took some ibuprofen, and went to sleep. It is tender today and I expect I will have a terrific bruise and a Frankenstein scar but so far no real pain. 

how it looked Monday morning

I go back in 10 days to get the stitches out.