My dad is relatively ok, but he had an accident tonight. He was up north for the week and was in his shed working with the table saw. I don't know many details yet, but somehow cut off this thumb, index, and middle finger of his left hand.
He doesn't have a landline at his place and his cell is spotty so he drove himself the quarter mile down the road to my grandma's house to call 911, and called my stepmom from the ambulance and she called me. She scared the shit out of me when she told me though, from the tone of her voice and saying, "it's your dad" I was terrified something way way worse happened. So I am thankful he is ok and it's not life threatening, but I'm still pretty upset. I cannot imagine how scary and painful that must have been. He is a very active guy, always working with his hands so it worries me that it will be hard for him to continue doing the things he loves with whatever state his hand ends up in.
I know he won't let it stop him, but still it will be hard. He is right handed, so at least it was his non-dominant hand, but I was hoping it was his other two fingers that aren't as useful, or maybe just the tips. My stepmom called me back when she got an update. Apparently his thumb can be saved and isn't that bad, but his index finger is gone and is too mangled to be repaired. I am still not sure if the whole thing is gone or if it's to the knuckle. His middle finger might be saved, but they have to find it first. He understandably wasn't in the right frame of mind to look for them before getting help, as it was I think it's a little crazy that he drove to my grandma's. But I know what he was thinking...they're out in the country, if an ambulance goes by with their lights and sirens on you're going to look. If my grandma looked out and saw an ambulance at his place, she would have flipped out and she cannot drive to go down there to see what happened.
So if they can find whatever was cut off of his middle finger, they might be able to repair it....but I don't know how much time they have. My cousin is going to look for it now, and then they have a 20-30 minute drive to the hospital. Luckily it is cold out so maybe that will buy some time.
I have a huge family, my dad has 11 siblings and most of them all live around there, so at least 4 or 5 of them are at the hospital with him now. My stepmom said she could barely recognize my Uncle Bob's voice. I find it oddly humerous, the men in my family are all tough as nails but when it comes to their siblings they're pussy cats. My dad is really close to most of his brothers and they're thick as thieves. My stepmom, brother, and SIL are going to drive up tomorrow to see him....he was planning on coming home tomorrow anyway so as soon as he is up to it my stepmom will drive him home. I'm so afraid to see his hand, I know I will lose it. I feel like a shitty daughter, but I'm not going to go. I am less than a week from full term, and I've already been to L&D twice this trimester. I'm too afraid to be four hours away from my doctor this close to the end. Also because I still have my cerclage in, I am not confident that just any doctor would know how to properly take it out if I were to go into labor with it still in.
Everyone agreed it is best that I don't go, and my dad even told my stepmom that I don't need to worry about coming, to just stay home and take care of his granddaughter :) I know everyone is right, and I know I am right to not go, but I still feel bad. But it helps to know he has family with him now, and more are going tomorrow. I know in the grand scheme of things, fingers are nothing compared to the fact that he is ok, his life is way more important than fingers, but I just feel so sad for him. First that has got to be scary and shocking to see part of your body not attached to the rest of you anymore, and well, fingers are kind of important. I pray it doesn't take him long to adjust without them and he can still do all of the things he loves to do. And because we are a twisted family that has to make jokes to lighten the mood, once he's feeling better I'll have to console him by saying, well at least it won't affect his typing. He's already the worst typist in the world, he cannot get any worse. I guess he was working on the vanity for my stepmom's bathroom when this happened, and she was trying not to stress him out by crying on the phone, so she asked, well you didn't get any blood on the vanity did you? Told you we're twisted.
But since losing my mom, something happening to my dad is one of my worst fears. I don't know if he is accident prone or what, but he seems to have a lot of things happen to him. Part of it is he is very active, and always on the go, so he just has more opportunity for things to happen. But just the other day he got all banged up when he got thrown off his snowmobile, the same year my mom died he had prostate cancer, a few years ago he flipped his truck on an icy road going up north, and it seems like every time I see him he's got some new cut or injury. My uncle, his brother, fell out of his deer blind a few years ago and is now paralyzed from the waist down. It just seems like he is always getting into some shit and I am so scared one of these days it is going to be something much much worse. When I first heard the tone of my stepmom's voice I was terrified, thinking my worst fear was coming true, that something so much worse happened. I wish I could just wrap him in bubble wrap.
No comments:
Post a Comment