The Food Processor

This is my club.

As many of you may have seen on Facebook, I had a little accident on Sunday afternoon with the food processor in our kitchen. I was preparing to make an extra large batch of homemade salsa for Heather and I to freeze when the big event occurred. Thankfully, I hadn’t started working with any food just yet, but was only getting all the neccessary equipment out and in usable condition. I had gotten out the food processor and was opening it so i could dump in the first round of vegetables when it fell apart in my hand. Not really thinking clearly about the safety implications of what I was to do next, I began to put the thing back together (of course without unplugging it, because why would a food processor turn on outside of its casing…that would not be safe!), when the spinning blade turned on in my hand. Heather laughed at the sound of it falling out of my hand, thinking it had just fallen apart on me again. However, when she turned around and saw my shock and heard me say “It’s NOT FUNNY!” she knew there was a problem. I was dripping blood everywhere. One glance and making sure everything was still attached (no appendage hunting was needed) we knew it was time to head for the hospital. Basic first aid was applied and we headed for the car. By this point, I was less concerned about my hand and more concerned about leaving the house with the dying fire still going in the fire place.

Once we stepped out of the house, locked the door and started towards the car, I heard Heather say, “OH NO!” She’d left her set of house keys (which are needed to get out the front gate and TO the hospital, in the house. Thankfully mine were still in my purse which she HAD grabbed, so we were on our way. (Otherwise, we might still be sitting in our driveway…)

On the way, Heather called Ruth to tell her we were headed for the hospital. When she said, “Just letting you know I’m on the way to the hospital with Tonya.” Ruth immediately said, “What?!” and heard the whole story en route to the hospital. She met us at casualty and got the keys to take care of that fire I was so concerned about :).

After arriving at the hospital, everyone wanted to know what happened. I was immediately taken back and they started the process of fixing me up. First, they put my hand in a bowl of iodine (which HURT). The nurses attending the person in the bed next to me kept hitting the table my hand was on which only made it hurt worse! Heather was in and out filling out paperwork (thankfully she knows enough about me to fill those out now), giving Ruth keys, and ordering up non-bloody clothes. An hour and a half; many, many numbing shots in my FINGERS (OUCH those HURT); twenty to twenty-five stitches; and a tetanus shot later I was patched up and heading home. (After paying the casualty bill and picking up mega anti-biotics and some ineffective pain pills :).

While the stitching was going on, Ruth went to the house expecting to find a food processor in parts all over the kitchen. However, she couldn’t even find it! Somehow in all the mayhem, I’d placed it neatly in pieces on the counter against the wall!

This is how i placed everything back on the counter after i tried to cut my hand off and was bleeding everywhere!

There was very little blood even evident on the floor (thanks to our eight-legged clean up crew [YUCK]). The dogs were VERY concerned about the chaos and tried to jump in the car to go to the hospital with us! They were ecstatic to see me walk in again after all was said and done.

Now I’m at home again, very thankful to still have all my fingers. I’m learning to do things mostly with one hand and a thumb, since my thumb is the only part of my right hand not bandaged. I feel a bit like I’m back in high school practicing to do things with my left hand for basketball. 🙂 Who knew things like brushing your teeth and eating could be so difficult!

Tomorrow I head back to school. Thankfully we had two days off this week due to a holiday for me to recover without even missing any school. There will be much explaining to the kids, I’m sure, and maybe even more to the staff! I will have to draft a few scribes for writing on the board from my collection of older students, at least for about a week…I also see a wound care specialist after school tomorrow to be sure my hand is healing properly and that there is no infection developing.

CAUTION…The pictures below are only for my CSI loving friends as blood and skin are visible. Unfortunately, we did not get any good pictures of the blood spatter on the wall or the puddle beneath my feet when Heather was attempting to dress it a bit.

Notice the blood on the base of the blade and the skin chunk actually still on the blade!

More blood and another look at the skin chunks