"I get by with a little help from my friends."- The Beatles
“Do you know where your Dad is?” I said, in the calmest tone I could muster. My son was working away at his homework and dear old Dad was nowhere to be found.
Breathe.
“Not really,” he said.
OK. On to Plan B. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe I could handle this myself. Giving it a moment's thought, I looked down and did a quick inventory of the situation.
Nope.
“Well, I think I need a bit of help,” I noted in an extremely understated sort of way. “Could you call next door and see if they’re home?”
“What do you need?” he asked looking over casually in my direction and then…”oh….uh oh… I’m dialing right now.” “Uh, hi,” I heard him say, “Mom needs help. Right away. She’s bleeding…” That’s my boy, composed and calm.
You may have to forgive any errors in this post. Typing with only four fingers is a bit of a challenge.
The list of things to do on a sunny Sunday in May was already long enough. The cupboards were bare (so what else is new?), the laundry was already in process (washer, dryer and three additional loads sorted on the floor) and there was a good deal of work to be done in the yard. Spending 3 hours in the emergency room was not on the original list but neither was attempting to sever my pinkie with the pruning shears.
“What do we have here?” the triage nurse asked when I sat down in the small sterile room. After a quick couple of tests to determine if I had a temperature (no), a blood pressure (yes) and was getting enough oxygen (by attaching a small cuff to my finger…huh?) my triage friend determined that I was apparently not in ny danger of expiring, at least not imminently. “Follow me,” she directed and off we went to the inner sanctum of the local emergency room to wait for someone who could use his or her hemming skills on my pruning handiwork.
Two hours and six stitches later, I sheepishly caught my husband’s eye as I walked out into the waiting room. “What the heck happened?” he asked, rhetorically. He’s been married to me for 22 years. There are some questions that just don’t require answers anymore.
Of course, the kids weren’t much help either. The youngest one figured his job was done after making the phone call and promptly settled back into his homework and the oldest, well, he was busily engaged in an imaginary battle on the computer with a two dimensional droid named Hans and hadn’t even realized I’d left. My husband, having returned home to find me missing, tried unsuccessfully to get the scoop from them and finally had to make contact with my neighbor, Florence Nightingale to get the details.
“How is it possible that the kids had no idea where you had gone?” he asked as we got in the car to go home.
“Oh, it’s possible all right.” I cradled my bandaged hand in my lap; the anesthesia was beginning to wear off. The throbbing had already begun. "They already ate lunch and dinner is still several hours away."
They would have noticed, eventually.