It’s been a while since I contacted anyone, I didn’t do any Christmas cards and things have been a bit higgledy-piggledy this Christmas and New Year. There are reasons but I can’t really talk about them. Suffice it to say there was a death in the family, so this Christmas was pretty much a rinse and repeat of last year. When stuff like this happens, I tend to write about it on my blog. There are two reasons for this.
ONE:
As an externaliser, sharing my thoughts helps me get them in order. In theory, as someone who sells stuff and writes books, sharing something this personal might be considered over sharing. Indeed last year, when I mentioned my mother’s death in a mailing, someone unsubscribed and left me a very unpleasant message. Hence, I only share stuff about people who I know wouldn’t or won’t mind. This death was someone who would mind, ergo, no externalising. But my WYSIWYG nature being what it is, I was unable to write a post without mentioning it. That meant no blog.
TWO:
The world political climate is grim and I know I should do something to stand against the bile and hatred that seems to be spewed everywhere at the moment in the name of ‘free speech’ which some folk seem to think means, license to bully people, lie and spread misery.
Sadly, I’ve no clue what to write and nothing will do any good. Apart from writing extensively about why this new strain of (We’re Not Allowed To Call It) Fascism is wank. Clearly many people can no longer imagine what a police state would be like since the USA’s descent into (We’re Not Allowed To Call It) Fascism and the apparent unconcern among a huge chunk of right wing voters there is a tad chilling and yes, I should comment. However, it’s also difficult to write about it until I get my thoughts in order; and they aren’t. At the same time, it’s difficult to ignore it when I attempt to write about anything else.
Yes you you miserable fuckers. You’re doing my tits.
Bizarrely, this week, I am finally writing a blog at a point when it’s actually physically painful to do so, because at last, I have a genuinely, ‘interesting’—well yeh, it’s all relative—story that I can share which will stop me straying into ground where my thoughts are not yet cohesive enough. Woot. Probably. Right, on we go.
Ouch
Yep. Muggins here managed to get bitten by a dog; a rottweiler, no less. Copious bleeding and stitches given, or at least, steri-strips and glue because apparently they don’t do stitches much these days. Let me tell you the entire sorry story.
I was booked to go on a dig on Saturday and McOther was off to Twickenham to watch England V Scotland in the Five Nations. McMini is now competent enough to be left at home although I’d booked him a haircut, left the money and promised to ring him in time to get out of bed and be ready. Luckily the hair cutter comes to us!
Anyway, off I went, parked up, got my kit ready for the briefing and hung around waiting. My detector was on so it and the spade were over my shoulder but my right hand was free. There was this big soppy old Rottweiler trundling about on an extended lead, people were patting him and he was trotting over to people and sniffing them. He came my way so I wandered over to have a chat.
He had lovely light brown eyebrows and his brow was wrinkled, friendly-dog style, his expression and demeanour open and friendly. Now, I’m a country girl. Animals, even the best of them, are unpredictable, especially if they don’t know you and a Rottweiler is a formidable dog and absolutely not one to get on the wrong side of. I usually make a point of asking people if I can touch their dogs before just striding in there for a pat.
However, this dog was greeting lots of people and was clearly a much loved part of the group. Indeed, I think I’ve seen him at a couple of digs myself. He’s well-behaved and properly trained.
So I made eye contact and then held my hand out spoke to him. I have since learned that it is not always a good idea to maintain eye contact with dogs as they can see this as aggression. I knew cats do but I didn’t realise dogs were the same in this. Anyway, he had a sniff and seemed alright with it so I stroked the top of his head. He was OK with that, too, but I didn’t think he was 100% comfortable so I decided to move back. I withdrew my hand and broke off eye contact as I made to step away. When I did so, he suddenly went for my hand. The noise alerted me before I saw him move.
Obviously, I did the natural thing, withdrew the hand pronto. This was kind of sensible, I mean as I understand it, and I may be wrong here but as far as I know, Rotweilers can lock their jaws closed and if they are spooked or panicked they’re more likely to do this. It might be arthritic but I do find my thumb useful, although I guess my instincts decided for me anyway.
Luckily I was wearing two pairs of gloves. I realised I’d been bitten because I felt the pressure and also the glove went with the dog. He shook it twice and dropped it on the ground, thumb completely severed.
’Ah!’ I said.
There’s some previous on this. I once cut my other thumb peeling vegetables because I thought there was a slug in the potato I was working on and threw the knife away, slashing my thumb in the process #NotAMelt. This also bled copiously, well, hands and heads do (feet too I should imagine) and I was ripped for some time because when it happened I just said, ‘ooh’ followed by silence.
On that occasion, my husband was beside me in seconds and I avoided casualty by din’t of the fact we had a doctor staying with us who always carried steri-strips in her car.
I still get the piss ripped out of me about the fact I will yell the place down if I stub my toe but that the McOthers know that if I say something calm and quiet like, ‘oh dear’ I’ve probably severed a limb.
In this case, the ‘Ah’ had a similar reaction.
A lot of people gathered round very quickly. Although the noise the dog made must have alerted them too I’m guessing.
My first thought was, ‘Bollocks! It’s bitten me! This had better not be bad!’ because I haven’t been out detecting in fucking ages and there wasn’t a doctor with steri-strips (and even if there was, it needed washed properly etc).
I checked the damage. The bit that hurt was the base of my thumb on the back of my hand. Yes, there were a couple of punctures just between the two knuckle joints. They were bleeding a fair bit and I could see the bruising coming up round them. Not too bad. The longest was only about a centimetre/half an inch. I reckoned I could get away with that if the organisers had a plaster I could stick on it. But the meaty bit at the base of my hand was also a bit stingy, as if I’d grazed it, so I thought I’d better check that too. Turning my hand over revealed a lovely gash about an inch and a half long. It looked like a slashed cushion with the stuffing spilling out. Strings of yellow fat and strawberry jam. Nice. It was also bleeding.
Copiously.
Everywhere.
Wank.
‘Ah,’ I said again. True to form.
If you want to see that that looked like, click on this link: I’ve given you the option in case you’re squeamish.
With a sinking heart, I explained that I’d had similar cut before and knew it needed stitches. Nobody disagreed. The various stewards cleaned it as best they could, applied dressings and bound it up tight to slow the bleeding.
Various kind others helped me pack my detector up, put it in back in the car and lock it. The guy who owned the dog was mortified but it so obviously wasn’t that kind of dog and I told him not to worry, no harm done.
The dig group is run very professionally by a husband and wife team and, usually three or four other stewards. There is always someone there who’s not digging for just this kind of eventuality, but also so there is someone back at the farmyard if anyone needs them and to view the finds.
The wife, Joanne, drove me to Colchester Hospital in their truck. Luckily she is very good company so we just chatted away as she drove. Google took us via Will’s mother’s, as usual, but we got there in reasonably good time, it was about half nine when we arrived.
Casualty was pretty full lots of people who’d injured themselves, left it overnight to see if they felt better and discovered they hadn’t. We joined the queue and I had to fill in a form which Joanne did for me, bless her. Colchester hospital is being refurbished so there were that many building works going on there it felt more like Heathrow but luckily there didn’t seem to be much work going on (it was Saturday) so it was reasonably quiet.
Joanne was sent off to the cafe because there weren’t enough seats for anyone other than the folks nursing injuries. Luckily she had a book with her. I joined another queue, to hand my form to some ladies behind glass and got told off for going to the nearest free lady before I was called forward so I had to scuttle back to the wait here sign. These ladies were both very stern, and slightly terrifying. I suspect they get a lot of shit.
Stern …
Form handed in I sat and waited with my fellow victims. By just after ten it occurred to me that although all my fingers and thumb appeared to still be moving as required, I ought to tell the McOthers in case they had to fix something and I was kept in for surgery. I didn’t imagine it would take long but I’d had breakfast, so it’d be a while before I could be anaesthetised and I might not make it home until very late. McMini was at home alone, McOther having gone to London to watch Scotland play England in the five nations, so I’d need to tip him off or transfer him some cash for a takeaway supper. I put a message on our family group chat explaining what had happened.
Bless him, McOther replied at once asking if I could drive. I said I didn’t know as I hadn’t seen the doc but that I thought I’d be fine and if not I Joanne had already said that someone fully comprehensively insured from the dig crew would drive me. Lovely McOther said he would much rather see me home safe, that he was just about to meet the lads and that he’d explain what had happened, head straight round to Liverpool Street and get the next train to Colchester so he could drive me home.
I asked Joanne if we could pick him up from the station when I was done and she said yes, so it was all fixed.
At about half eleven, I was shown in to see a lovely doctor called Camilla. She was an absolute poppet. Apparently Colchester A&E has at least one dog bite every day, which I thought was a bit of an eye-opener. She had a look, washed it carefully, stuck steri-strips and glue over the long cut on the heel of my hand and the shorter one on my thumb. I asked if yanking my hand away had been unwise and the gist of her reply was, ‘not if you like having two thumbs’.
Number 1 cut with steri-strip applied.
That done she dressed it, bandaged me up and gave me a precautionary 3 day course of penicillin. This has to be taken as equally distant apart as possible, with food, so the diet’s going a bit badly as I have to have an extra bite to eat at 4pm and 10pm. The first dose is taken with breakfast so that’s a win and I can drink with it. Also a win.
The final article, before bandaging.
The last thing the doctor did was hand me another pair of dressings and bandage to change the dressing on day three, which is probably today. Next Joanne drove me to Colchester Station to wait for McOther who would have got there in perfect time but the first train was cancelled so he had to catch the next one. We passed a very pleasant hour in the truck putting the world to rights. Then McOther’s train arrived so we picked him up, drove back to the farm and he drove me home. I’m not sure he enjoyed driving the Lotus, I’m also not sure the gearbox will ever be the same again, bless him. Shhh don’t tell him I said that.
We got back shortly after my hairdressing friend arrived to do McMini’s hair and while she was there, I got her to tidy up my hair as well … which was nice!
Aftermath
So there we are. It’s now day three and it’s stiffened up a lot, which is excruciating. BUT … I have discovered two things that really help, get your hands moving when it’s too painful to do it alone. Start with a heat pack to loosen it initially, or if you have a vibro massager use that in the general area (but not on the stitches, obviously). Both those are wonderful for reducing the pain and allowing freer movement. Then, once everything is more relaxed, touch typing seems to be brilliant for this kind of stiffness as it’s low impact but enough movement to keep things supple. Also after an injury like this you do need to keep things moving.
On the downside, after about half an hour it all stiffens up again. It maybe that I’ve been typing too much and overdone it perhaps, I dunno, but I’ve left The Pan of Hamgee standing on a roof disguised as half of a drag duo, with the other half at his side and a party of hostile members of the Grongolian Security Forces about to join them very soon, so I reckon I’m excused as I need to know what happens next. Flying car chase, obvs but I need to work out how it goes.
If you’re bored …
Or need to escape, why not check out one of my books. I give some away for free, because I’m kind like that, so you won’t even have to pay to be distracted from the absolute fucking car crash that is the world right now.
Lose yourself in some books here.
