Just stop reading if you are sensitive to ER stories. Stop right now.
OK, now that the squeamish have left, I can tell my severed pinkie story. It's not that bad, I swear. In September, I was trying to make this Ratatouille dish and it called for a mandolin slicer. I asked for one from my parents for Christmas last year and it was still brand new in the box. This would be a great time to use the slicer, right?
Joe helped me put it together and he said, watch out, it's sharp. Yeah, got it, I said. Five minutes later, I had cut myself. And this is within 10 minutes of taking it out of the box for the first time. I realized I cut myself, and when I looked down, I just thought, oh no. This is not a problem I can handle on my own. I needed to go to the ER, because I had sliced the corner of my right pinkie clean off.
Joe sprung into action and I grabbed an entire roll of paper towels and we got into the car. There's a clinic down the street from our house right near Union Kitchen, but it was closed. They were throwing a party in the Union Kitchen parking lot, wonder if I was a buzzkill as I got out of car while carrying bloody paper towels and scream-crying.
I wasn't brave about it at all, lots of wailing and crying. It wasn't even that it hurt, although it definitely didn't feel great. I think it was the shock of it all. I realized I had stupidly done something that I couldn't undo. And all it took was one misplaced second and I would have a horrible, scarred, weird-looking pinkie finger forever.
Or at least that's what I thought. The clinic was closed, so then we had to drive to Washington Hospital Center. And I couldn't have had a better experience there! Perhaps you do get better service when you are bleeding everywhere, though. The nurse was terrifically nice and put me at ease. "At least we know that you didn't cut off more than 1/8th of an inch," Joe joked. That was the setting of the mandolin.
The doctor, however, didn't have the best bedside manner. He saw me for less than five minutes, and said there was nothing to stitch. "Doctor, I think she just wants to hear you say that she won't be deformed," Joe said. The doctor refused to say that, however. He didn't have much interest in putting me at ease, haha.
So I got a tetanus shot and went home with bandages. Later that month I got the bill. It floored me: $1500 for a thing of bandages, five minutes with a doctor, 15 minutes with a nurse, and a tetanus shot. Somehow, my crappy, non-compliant-with-Obamacare health insurance paid for the entire thing!!!
This is a huge miracle. I love my crappy healthcare, Obama can pry it out of my hands. But the biggest issue I have is why did this cost $1500 in the first place? I did not get $1500 worth of care, and I can't imagine what an actual problem would cost. But what else could I have done? It makes me never want to go to the hospital or the doctor, and I have an individual insurance plan. I don't think we are talking enough about the inflated cost of healthcare.
So Joe was so sweet to me. He helped take care of me, and he even went in the apartment and THIS IS GROSS, but he threw the sliver of my finger away. I was too afraid to go back in the apartment. This event was a little traumatizing.
It's been a month, and I've re-learned to type with all 10 fingers, and it has healed completely. You wouldn't even know anything had happen unless you look carefully. My pinkie is numb there though, I think I don't have a fingerprint as well. Now should I throw the slicer away or what? I did go on Amazon to buy stainless steel gloves, I never want to cut myself while cooking again!
