Your bandaid story could have been worse...

I sliced into my thumb with a slip of a craft-knife while doing some DIY. It went about half way through the tip of my thumb, about half way down my nail. There was no real pain, but the sheer quantity of blood alarmed me. (Apparently it's due to the concentration of nerve endings in sensitive fingertips). I've never cut myself that badly before, so I've no idea what to expect. How much blood is normal? When should it stop? How much can I lose before I pass out and bleed to death? What are the chances that I developed hemofilia since I last shaved?

I'm home alone, and it just won't stop bleeding, the house is starting to look like a murder scene, blood spilling from the hand cupped under my wound as I run around looking for towels and trying to find a first aid kit. Shit. I start to think it might need a stitch or two if it won't stop bleeding, but I can't drive with one hand. So, out of options, I dialed 999 (that's metric for 911) and started apologising like crazy. I was sure I was about to be arrested and hauled off to jail for wasting their time, but I had no idea what else to do. I explained it was 10 minute and it was still bleeding, and that I'd exhausted my first-aid knowledge by trying to stick a small square of tissue to it. The nice lady on the phone said not to worry, an ambulance was on the way.

Paramedics arrived (very quickly, like 3 mins). I let them in, they stick a bandage round my thumb, and tell me to keep pressure on it. They don't even have the decency to suck air through their teeth and say, "Oooh, that's a nasty one, mate!" so I can at least feel slightly dignified. Off we go to Accident and Emergency at the hospital across town. I'm not allowed to ride in the front.

No blue lights. No drama. Just me, sitting in the back, holding my thumb, and apologising profusely. I was explaining that I couldn't drive one-handed (and slightly in shock), and that a taxi would probably have been annoyed at me bleeding all over the cab, so ambulance seemed like the only option at the time. I briefly wonder if somebody, somewhere, is waiting for my ambulance as their toddler turns blue, but try to replace such thoughts by calculating how much tax I've paid over the years, and how much I'm comfortably in credit after this one short ride. Had I been born in the US, I would probably be calculating how much kidneys sell for.

By now, the bleeding had stopped completely and I would have been quite happy to go home and start scrubbing the blood off the floor, but once they answer an emergency call, they have to get me checked out and signed off, so the process is not reversible. I'm going to hospital for a band-aid whether I like it or not.

So, I arrive, and answer some questions for the paperwork, then sit in the waiting room for an hour, feeling fraudulent. I wonder if the hour is a carefully optimised length of stewing time, calculated proportional to patheticness multiplied by how much of their time I'm wasting. Eventually, a nice nurse takes the bandage off to assess the damage. She wiggles the loose end of my thumb and I catch a glimpse inside my own thumb. I faint, and fall over.

Brave huh?

So, from that moment on, they insist I stay lying on a trolley-bed, from which I cannot cause any more commotion. I insist that I'm fine now, thank you, and that I just wasn't expecting to see my own insides, and I don't like blood much anyway, and the moment has passed, and it's really ok. Honestly, I'm fine. But no, rules are rules, and if they let me stand up and I was to faint again, I could sue, so I was to stay lying down. That's an order. I wouldn't want to get the nurse into trouble, would I? No, I agreed that I would not.

The nurse can't quite decide if my knife has nicked the bone or not, so decides an x-ray is appropriate just in case. She orders a porter to wheel me to radiology. I point out how ridiculous that is, and that I'll just walk, but again get the lawyer talk, and rules are rules.

Now would probably be a good time to mention that I'm 6'6", and on the day in question I'm unshaven and in my DIY jeans and a paint-splattered t-shirt. Basically, I look as tough as my old work-boots.

So, I'm lying on a trolley-bed in the corridor outside the x-ray rooms, waiting my turn. There are many other people sitting on chairs in the waiting area, some with crutches, some with arms in slings, most in hospital gowns. The rows of chairs face my trolley-bed. Everyone watched my getting wheeled up and parked. They continue to watch me, wondering the full extent of my industrial accident. I have a small, neat bandage on one thumb.

The radiologists are two young, pretty ladies. They're bright, cheery, friendly and on any other day, in any bar in town, would definitely be worth a drink and a flirt. Eventually, one calls my name out, and I raise my hand. They collapse laughing at the sight of me. "What's happened to you then?", one asks, opening my file. "Cut my thumb", I reply, dejectedly. There's no way I can say it without the entire waiting room hearing. I've lost all hope of looking manly. She looks puzzled. "What's with the bed?", she asks. "Fainted", I reply, wishing the knife had slashed my jugular instead.

Those fabulous radiologists were very good about it, and very professional really, but could not stop laughing.

I deserve no pity. If anyone deserves pity, it's my girlfriend who's day was ruined by my text message just before I turned my phone off in the hospital: "If you get home from work before I get home from hospital, don't worry about the blood in the house. I'll clean it up."

TL;DR I'm pathetic.