When I woke up the air mattress was completely deflated. The gauze around my finger was completely yellow and completely soaked. Tissue fluid. I know all about it from the half dozen or so serious raspberries I've gotten on my legs from playing softball at Seton Hall and the Cape.
Over the course of the next few days, as I changed gauze, it repeatedly would become soaked with tissue fluid escaping the broken blister on my index finger. Meanwhile, my other fingers began to start their healing process. My left index finger blistered a little, my left thumb blistered a lot while fingers on my right hand just remained bright red, which is good, less severe.
The good news is I ended up getting three days off from work. Three extremely boring days of learning to do everything with my ring and pinky fingers on each hand.
By Saturday, still leaking tissue fluid, my dad ordered me to perform minor surgery on my hand. I needed to cut off any dead tissue that could be cut off. I can now say that I've been eaten by ants. As I removed each piece of skin I put it on my counter as I continued, trying to get it all out of the way. By the time I looked down dozens of small ants covered the dead skin on the counter. That was gross. What was underneath the dead skin was much more gross.
Bacitracin and wrap. That was the process.
Traumatized, I went to the beach for the first time in a while just to sit. The next thing I knew I was participating in happy hour at one of the bars. After going home to eat dinner, I decided it was best if I just went out and tried to act normal again. Cold drinks would certainly feel good on my hand.
One of the hole in the wall places here in Cabarete is called Blue Bar, well because it's blue. It's not on the beach, but it about a minute walk off the beach and across the street. Very few people know of it/how cheap its drinks are. Now Blue Bar also happens to have a "challenge." Drink 8 of their cuba libres (rum and cokes) in one night and you get your name on the wall. Now these are not your average American drinks. Think a good sized styrofoam cup, then 4/5 rum, the rest coke. Now that's a challenge. I decided to try it.
Last Monday was a national holiday. No school. Sweet. So the organization took us to a German owned Thai restaurant with a pool and a dog named Ganja (yeah, no one could keep a straight face when the Arnold Schwarzenneger sounding guy told us). So I got to be the boring non-swimmer while everyone else had a blast. Great timing. At least the food was amazing (see that mom? I'll even eat Thai food now).
The rest of the week went like this:
Tuesday - everyone had questions about my hands
Wednesday - I stopped leaking tissue fluid
Thursday - the blister on my thumb broke...during class...while I was writing on the board
Friday - The rest of my bad bad right index finger looks like the finger of a dead person. Pale, pale, pale, and becoming very loose. As it starts to come off in the shower, I peel the rest off. I now have a bright red finger that looks worse than anything before it, but is actually much better off. It will, like my other fingers, start to lighten in color and become my skin.
For now it's still incredibly disgusting and raw.
***Obligatory picture warning***
The progression of one of my burns...with a few other pictures thrown in.
This is the beginning of my new finger.
And yeah, I completed it.
5 comments:
I'm really glad I started off my Monday b y reading your post. Pretty sure the nausea I'm experiencing will not subside any time in the near future.
Thanks.
im really glad while although in pain with your fingers, you were still able to get your name on the wall. it must be all those summer nights with kate that you were able to live up to that challenge.
I love my cousins - you both made me laugh - and I needed that after feeling a bit sick from seeing those pictures...... :)
You will do anything to get out of work. Did you know what you were pointing during the picture at the Bar or did they remind you the next morning (or evening). Try to stay accident free
to clarify, that picture was taken a week after i did the competition, they took a week to put my name up (i do however have a picture of a piece of paper with my attempts at writing my name and location immediately after finishing it. eventually someone else wrote it for me and handed it in).
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