Lessons Learned and Things to be Thankful For

Things can change so fast. One second you are screaming because a centipede crawled off a discarded workout glove, and the next second, someone needs stitches.
The person screaming over the bug was me (see previous post). The person needing stitches was Kimberly. Kimberly and Cy have done a lot of work around the yard and I particularly liked the way Kimberly trimmed the big hedge in front of the house and asked her to trim the one on the other side. So while Cy was trimming wild, crazy vines on the back side of the house, Kimberly was making the hedge look awesome. Then I distracted her. The next thing you know, she says “ow”! Then she’s holding her right forearm and says she doesn’t know what happened. She wasn’t holing the clippers at the time. When I take a look, all I see is blood, so I tell her to stay put while I run to get something clean to blot up the blood. Getting a look without the blood, I am relieved to see that it’s just a lac (laceration) that will need stitches. Before I could actually see what was there, I was worried that she might have gotten bit by a snake, so the lac was better than a snake bite. This is something to be thankful for (STF).
I called my GP MD and their office was “short on doctors” so they were no help. Lesson learned: find a new GP. I called the ortho doc, but none of the orthos are in that office on Mondays, or the staff assured me, they would have done it. The ER option seemed like it would be too expensive and also take 3 to 4 hours on a good day. Finally, I remembered the clinic that opened up 4 months ago at Escarpment and William Cannon. We got right in, but did have to wait about an hour for stitches. The doc was a hippie lady in dirty keds and baggy sweat pants, but she was nice and it looks like she did a good job – we’ll see exactly in about 7 days. The nurse dressed Kimberly stitches while I went up front to pay the bill. Kimberly wasn’t supposed to see the bill, but thanks to the primping, preening, receptionist, who advertised himself, in part by having a sticky note on the side of his computer (visible to anyone checking out) with a phone number and “The Full Monty” (I am not joking), she arrived just as he was telling me the total. It wasn’t cheap. This is only information for you, the reader, should you find yourself in a similar situation. I am not complaining. I love Kimberly a lot and I found other STF: we got stitches in a relatively timely manner, pre-numbed and with a clean needle (unlike many countries where you won’t get numbed and the needles are often reused and the dullness is only secondary to how clean they are after how many other people).
Finally, we also learned that it is probably better to blunt cut your bushes, unless they are under a window that you want to discourage would be intruders from entering. What’s that saying, “better than a poke in the arm with a sharp stick”? Now you know how much better.