Learning the hard way

By now you've likely seen or heard of my winter wood project. Well lets just say it's now jeremy's project.

We were invited to a friend's 70th birthday party at 2, which we obviously planned to attend....so we knew we didn't have the time to get the sono tubes in for the addition so we decided to work on the wood. Jeremy bucked up the last lengths of tree and I was running the wood spliiter. Ashtyn and taylor were safely away from us but still within sight... I know some of you will wonder. So, jeremy finished bucking and then went for a quick ride on his quad with the dog and I continued splitting....and yes, you can do the two-manned splitting garbage but i'd rather be in control of it all.... A couple minutes go by and he's back and starts running the handle of the splitter, which I just stated: I want to control it all or have no part of it. And please understand, it's not that i'm a control freak it's just I tend to f up when i'm watched and when he and I work together it's basically definitely going to happen and he's going to get hurt and well, it'll be my fault, so I avoid that stuff. So, I let him take over the splitting but, being the nice wife that I am, I placed all the bucked up wood closer to the splitter so he didn't have to keep running all over to pick it up. Aren't I sweet?
So then I start stacking up all the split wood. We only 'need' (we assume) 2 more rows and we'll be set for the winter. I start in on the first one. I grab an armful, like 7 or 8 pieces and stack them all nice in their new little row. I'm all proud of how my ends are these days. I used to be really really bad tying the ends, but now they are awesome and sturdy and i'm so excited I split and stacked about 98% of our so far 7 1/2 cords of wood all by myself. And yes, all by myself, during naps and whatnot. So now that it's almost done i'm just gitty with not having to do it again until next year. Another armload beautifully placed. And another. Look over to check on both kids. They're good. Another armload. Another armload... BAM! I hear a few curse words and the blaaght of the splitter motor. Oh f bomb. That hurt. 'are you okay' he asks. 'shut that thing off, where are the girls?' I respond. They are still safely away from us but have realized something bad just happened. 'oh s#*t, you're bleeding'. 'yup, can you go get me a towel'. He does. 'let me see your head'. 'i don't care about my head, I just mangled my wrist'. So a few more seconds of quick conversation and blood going everywhere. 'load up the kids and when you're done I need you to pick me up off the ground cuz if I do, i'm just going to faint'. So he gets the kids in and comes for me. I had to skip catching the blood for a bit so I could use the towel as a sling and pick up my arm. Not a pleasant feeling by the way. So we get on our way and I shockingly calm. I'm snickering about the lousy roads up here and how it'd be a smoother ride if we drove in the ditch. And we get to the hospital. Now it's do or die time. I unvelcro my left glove to finally see the damage and to save my glove from the doctors cut-happy scissors and then remove my never-ever-off-of-me harley davidson bracelet. Well, so far not bad. Removing the stuff hurt real bad but no bones protruding and no blood. It's a bit swollen and purplie. Now, everyone I know up here a) goes to dartmouth (which is 2 hrs away) and b) has expressed that they'd take their chances with bleeding to death driving elsewhere before going to the local one,so i'm a bit scared how this is going to be. Just for the record, I don't think it's as bad as they say but there were a couple annoying employees. So we pull in. There's this huge 'emergency room' sign on the building as well as normal sized signs everywhere. Jeremy pulls up to the door. I assure him I can walk the 15 ft so he can park the car in the closest spot available (100 ft away). So I get to the door, under this huge sign....'um, ma'am the er door is around the corner'.....really, that's super. So I stagger over to that door, it was only like 20 ft away. There are two receptionists at the desk. Neither look at me. The one at the window is casually talking with this girl about panic attacks and whatever, and i'm getting mad. Suddenly things are fuzzy. So I decide to go sit down. Jeremy walks in with the girls and I tell him I haven't been checked in. So he gets right up there. 'i'll be with you in a moment sir' and the woman sits down and starts eating a salad. Really? Wtf?! Meanwhile i'm chatting with a mother and daughter who are also waiting to check in. I explain what happened and they look at my blood covered head which is now covered with blood soak dreadlocks. They talked with me and the girls for a bit and finally in the background we hear 'what can I do for you sir?' 'my wife is bleeding all over the place and she broke her arm'. She looks at me....'i have a patient for triage' she says over the walkie talkie. well that got the fire going. Here's a nurse, there's a nurse, everywhere a nurse, nurse. Little nina messed up bad, eieio!
The secretaries we dealt with going in sucked! But the nursing staff made up for it. They were awesome. Cleaned me up, gentle as could be. I can't say enough good things about my nurses. They get me cleaned up, the doc comes in. I have gotten the 'oh'-face about a dozen times now. Everyone is in awe of my wrist. Doc stitches up my head and I get 'bedded' over to xray. That sucked worse than the stitches but the tech was a sweetheart and tried her darndest to make it as quick as possible. I snuck a peak of my xrays on the way back to my room. Yup, that's awesome. I basically ripped my radius (top bone of your arm when you do a 'thumbs up) away from all the little bones that make up your wrist, and shoved it into my ulna (the bottom one). Awesome. Goodstuff. So she wheels me and my bed back into my room and I await my goopy messy cast making adventure. Doc asked me what color and I went for this hot pastelled pink...ha!....and quickly realized it was an ace bandage. Huh? He then informs me I need to have surgery on tuesday-ish...but basically asap...and that's when I finally cried. Not like a baby, but I did cry for a minute. Then I put my tough girl attitude back on and they braced my arm. We were done now but had to wait as a man was brought in from a motorcycle accident (we wanted to not only respect his privacy....this place is tiny....but also not further tramatize the girls). As we waited jeremy commented on how many people came in to check on me and how I must have told what happened at least a dozen times. I then informed him it was how they try to make sure this wasn't a domestic abuse thing. That got him fired up but he quickly settled realizing that crap is a sad reality. So....now that i've said 'so' 52 times in this post....the moral of this story is: don't stack your wood 6 ft high, especially if its on wobbly pallets.....

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi