Christmas Nit-Wittery

Feliz Navidad, you-all.

This year Tabubilgirl is celebrating with a knee full of stitches.  She managed to stab herself with a pair of scissors while wrapping Christmas presents.

            One minute I was looking around for address labels and the next moment there was a bright red fountain coming out of me. I didn't even feel the blasted thing go in, but blood was spurting twelve inches sideways onto the tile floor.  It was pinpoint perfect stabbage.

           I have the worlds most wonderful mother-in-law (may the gods bless her and keep her forever and ever and ever).  She took my rather frantic phone call and jumped straight into her car and came straight over, and took me with her to the hospital. 

            She even mopped up the floor of my flat.  (Which was very brave and kind of her - she is very very unhappy around blood.)

As I hopped through the doors to the local Sala de Emergencia (Emergency Room),a bloody washcloth clapped against an even bloodier leg, an admitting nurse scooped me straight into a wheelchair and said "What happened?"

            "Stabbed myself with a pair of scissors."

            "Aaaaah." He nodded knowledgeably. "Wrapping presents, were you?"

            "I'm not the first person this has happened to, then?"

            "Dearie, you're not the first person today. We see this right through the New Year.  There's a whole season for what you did."

            And smirking slightly, he wheeled me over to the admissions desk and abandoned me.

Sigh. 

I was given a tetanus shot for starters, and this being the Clinica Alemana, they insisted on an ultrasound to make sure there wasn't anything inside the wound, because -

            "Sometimes the tips of the scissors break off!" 

            "The scissors were in one piece when they came out of me!!" 

            "There might be something else in there!!!"

            -and when there wasn't, I was sent back to my cubicle for suturing - and had to wait while a small child who'd fallen and sliced open her chin screamed the whole hospital down while she was sutured up.

            She was quite upset about her situation and most of the ER staff was looking quite seriously agitated by the time she was done.  Which was nervous-making.  A strung-out doctor who's spent half an hour being kicked by a hysterical seven year old is not a doctor I want approaching me with loaded needles.

            But after the last harried nurse fled the suturing room we waited quite another while- about the right amount of time for a nice friendly coffee break, and at last, I got stitched up. With steady hands.

           His hands were steady, but the doctor was sarcastic. He stitched, I said "Thank You, Doctor," he smiled and said "Take Care" and strode off into the hallway - and as he cleared the door he turned back and said "I presume your husband is taking over the rest of the gift-wrapping, hmmm?"

And then he about-faced and was out of that door fast, grinning manically.

My mother-in-law and I went home. And found Mr Tabubil looking pale and woebegone.  He'd just been drilled for an entire hour at the dentist, and was minus most of a tooth, and looking forward to more of the same after Christmas.  He was curled up in one of his beloved Ikea Poang chairs with a very sore face and looking very sorry for himself.

              In other news - My sister-in-law broke her toe this evening.  Or rather, her husband accidentally stepped on it and broke it for her, and she's not feeling so great either.

My mother-in-law is not having the best of all possible weeks.