Kitchen injury, old friends

Cori called me yesterday in the later afternoon to tell me that Nate had cut himself pretty badly. They recently bought one of those slicing boards that require the vegetable to be pushed through a knife mounted horizontally on the cutting tray. It can be adjusted for the depth of cut so the items sliced can vary in thickness. Nate was slicing sweet potatoes with the knife open to the thicker setting.

Sweet potatoes are not easy to cut regardless on the contraption used so he was using a good bit of force to ensure a smooth and efficient cut. As it is with all of that style of vegetable slicers, his thumb was easier to slice through that the sweet potato. He took off a large chunk of the top and side of his right thumb. For a Law Enforcement Officer, that is a debilitating injury – and will be a painful inconvenience for many weeks to come.

When Cori sent me the pictures of the open wound and told me Nate was sweating profusely and feeling faint, I suggested the hospital. I was hopeful they could use the detached flesh to help seal the wound. That was where her fun began. When the attending nurses saw the amount of blood he had lost, they took Nate in right away; leaving Cori with the kids to get him registered with the hospital.

At some point during the registration process, Mykenzie passed out and banged her face into the waiting room floor. She insisted that her legs started hurting and she needed to sit down. As traumatic as the experience was for my little six year old granddaughter, I cannot help but smile at the thought of her being so overcome at the sight of her daddy’s blood that she would pass out. She is in for a rough childhood as her daredevil brothers grow up.

Having tended to her daughter, the hospital staff and myriad questions related to the injury Cori was preparing to go back and check on her husband. That is when Blake needed to go potty and Grant began to express his restlessness. We all know how accommodating hospital emergency rooms are as play areas for young children. She ended up staying in the waiting room while Nate got two shots in the thumb before they cauterized the wound to stop the bleeding.

They were home in time to entertain their guests and watch Florida State win the championship game. I recommended they ask for some type of pain medication to relieve the throbbing Nate will experience for the next several days when he lays down to sleep. The hospital staff was not overly excited about the request but they did provide something for him.

I sent out an email last week to Emil Estrada; a friend from New Jersey (he and I worked together at the Bayway refinery)who has relocated his family to the Ukraine. His wife is native to the area. We had not been in touch for about a year so it was good to hear back from him almost immediately. We talked yesterday in the early morning and caught up a little. I had meetings to get to very early in the day so we did not get to converse long.

Since the time difference is eight hours we have to plan our conversations early in the morning for me, which is in the afternoon for him, or in the mid afternoon for me which is late in the day for him. We talked at my 6 a.m. which is his 2 p.m. My 2 p.m. would be his 10 p.m.

We will set up something this Saturday so Mama and Lana can also spend some time talking.