Re-integration is a beast and it rears it's ugly head in the most randomest of ways. We've been VERY fortunate to not have significant mental/physical health issues to deal with. I praise God for that every day and say a prayer for those are who and their families.
Re-integration always bits me in the butt in the whole "I can do it myself" way. I feel like a toddler wandering around stomping my feet every time Army Guy says "oh here, let me do that". I know he's being helpful and I really do appreciate it. But there are sometimes when I'd rather suffer for 10 mins trying to open the jar then have him open it in 3 seconds. Partly because there's that whole look he gives after he opens it in 3 seconds and I've been wrangling with it swearing like a sailor for the last 10 minutes. It's a subtle look, but after being married for 10 years and knowing him for 15 years, I know the look of "nanny nanny boo boo" when I see it. But mainly because I'm not always sure when he'll be home to open bottle and I just need to know that I can do it myself.
Yesterday, I was having one of those battle with a newly purchased bottle of olive oil. The protective wrap wouldn't come off and there was lots of swearing going on. Army Guy was in the kitchen messing with car parts and had his wow fancy, sharp knife with him. I should've just reached for the band-aids at that point. And as I'm literally opening my mouth to say "you know I wouldn't take a knife to that...I'll take care of it..." it happened. Yah, knife slip, finger slice, husband not saying a word but death grip on bleeding finger. Crap. I get him to stand up and hold finger over sink to look at it and realize yah, it's gonna need stitches. Crap. Call to the wife to see if she can watch kiddos and off to ER we go.
Sign in, triage, hurry up and wait. By this time, Army Guy is in pretty good pain. So, being in the ER with a sick kiddo is one kind of awful experience, but being in the ER with a 5'10", 185, solid guy who's gasping for air randomly because of pain is way worse. Finally get back to bed and get awesome nurse/PA Student team who announce that yes stitches will be needed, they'll do an x-ray, and they'll get him some pain meds. 45 minutes later, pain meds show up and off to x-ray he goes. 45 minutes later, nurse and PA come back and say everything is clear,so they'll clean wound, deaden finger and start stitches. Crap. Army Guy HATES needles. Big H, Big A, Big T, Big E. He tolerates them well, he just literally gets cranky at the sight of needles. At this point, I seriously think I should make a break for the door. But I decide to be the good wife and hang out. Brownie point for me.
So the needles come out and the deadening shots ensue. 2 on each side. And we all make funny banter about his pain and this somehow being payback for me pushing 3 children from my loins while we wait for finger to numb up. After the appropriate time, nurse chick barely touches the end of injured finger and Mike still visibly flinches. No big deal, just more deadening shots. Yay. More needles. So 4 more shots. More time waiting. At this point, Army Guy decides he'll just take the stitches over more numbing shots. Right. Who in their right freakin mind decides they'd rather feel stitches. Sigh...my husband. Several years ago, he smushed the end of his finger off (different finger) and in a failed attempt to re-attach it (he can only count to 9 3/4 now...hahaha), they gave him 21 shots of deadening stuff and ended up feeling stitches after the 4th stitch. After listening to him tell the nurse that after his 5th shot of deadening stuff, I once again ponder the idea of making a break for it.
Nurse consults with PA and they decide to do one more round in the knuckle and give it 10 minutes to numb up. At the 7 minute mark the nurse (and I use that term VERY loosely) who walked us back to the bed 3 hours ago, walks by, sees us waiting and says "they still haven't stitched you up yet???" This should've been a a clue on his powers of observation. Big Red Flag kind of warning. We both mumble something about waiting for it to deaden and "nurse" says "oh well, let me go check with PA and I'll get this taken care of for you guys". He walks off and we breathe a sigh of relief because last time PA was in, he said he'd do the stitches. Whew! "Nurse" gets out the door and we hear 'I was just coming to look for you, do you want me to stitch him up so he can go?'. Crap. So they come in and PA says "well did it deaden up anymore?" and "nurse" replies "oh yah, he's ready to go". And then in less then 3 seconds, PA is out the door and "nurse" is sticking needle in NOT deaden finger. I will say that yes, at that point we should've said "hey, STOP!" but the reality is Army Guy was soooo ready to be done that he didn't say anything thinking it'd take all of 3 seconds and it probably would've taken 3 seconds if we'd had the nurse/PA team that we'd been so lucky to have up to this point. But no, we got "nurse" guy who had to stick Army Guy SEVERAL times to get each stitch started. 4 stitches later, I'm thinking Army Guy has earned some heroic medal for not killing the "nurse". The "nurse" was completely oblivious to Army Guy flinches, holding his breath, and foot movement that indicated immense pain. The "nurse" announces he's done, he'll get it cleaned up, have PA look at it and we'll be out the door. Thank God. At least the worst is over!!! Right. I've seen power washers be less abrasive then this "nurse" with scrubby brush. So I get that Army Guy was going to take these stitches even if he felt them, but yah, the obnoxious scrubbing to remove betadine was a bit much. So I say "Ummm, yah, you might want to be a little softer that finger isn't as numb as you think it is" and he says "Oh, I'm not scrubbing where I gave him stitches.". Sigh. PA comes in, signs off on stitches, we get bag of goodies, instructions to keep it dry and have stitches removed in 10 days, obligatory motrin and out the door we go.
So now here we sit. Army Guy got a new computer game because well he can't play PS3 without all of the use of both hands. And through all of this it made me think. A)I really thought the first time I'd be at the ER with stitches would've been with Thing 2. B)At 32, why would you think a knife would be an acceptable tool to open a bottle C) There's going to be lots more stomping, swearing and non-opening bottle frustration around here. D) No matter what Army Guy says, spending 5 hours at ER followed by a trip to Taco Bell, does NOT count as a date.
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