Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!: Tails of Socialized Medicine Part Three

My finger almost killed me:

The ship is very quiet at night. Almost too quiet. Perhaps this is what led me to slam my finger in a water tight door and almost die from it. Sounds ridiculous right? You'd think i was lying.

I'm not.

It was around 2 or 3 in the morning. My friend Hurde and i went across hanger bay two to check out some paint from HAZMAT. It was a quick trip but the journey took me through a strange, tilted water tight door and while closing it behind me, i slammed my finger in it. I quickly pulled my hand away and made the mistake of looking down.

You see, i don't do well with seeing my own injuries. While i'm working at the veterinary clinic, a part of me switches to what i call 'Doctor Mode' and i vastly ignore what i see. I only see a job to do and a chance to learn something new. But when it involves my own blood and pain, i tend to panic.

That's exactly what i did. What i looked down and saw shook my world. I saw my fingernail holding on by a thread and coated with thick, foul looking, black blood. It was dripping so slow and i remember thinking that it looked strange and i brought it closer to understand what was happening. It must have hit and hit me with something fierce because i pretty much instantly started feeling light headed and queezy.

I was able to stumble down the stairs and walk to medical which wasn't far away. I didn't say anything to the receptionist but went straight away into the small emergency room. I just wanted a bed and some place to lie down for a while.

I don't remember a whole lot after that. I do remember people around me and an impossible pain radiating from my stomach. It hurt so badly that i curled up onto my side and tried not to cry from the horrible cramps. I remember them asking me far more than once if i was on my period and i was given pepto-bismol to help fight off the pain.

Of course it didn't work.

I also remember someone messing with my other arm. I remember trying to figure out what the pain was around my arm when i realized that they were taking my blood pressure over and over again. By this time, an actual doctor had shown up and he insisted that the cuff was too large for my arm. I'm a small girl, no doubt there, but i have never, not even once, had a nurse say "this cuff is too big, get me another one." Halfway between passing out and the searing pain in my stomach, i heard one of them try to tell me that my blood pressure was drastically low yet my heart rate was through the roof.

Guess what was happening yet? Keep reading.

I struggled to regain some sort of conscious thought for what felt like a life time before i finally came around. When i could talk and focus on people, they told me to keep lying down so that they could take a better look at my finger (they thought i had broken it). It was almost an hour into the ordeal before the doctor warned his staff to never wake him again for something so trivial. Then he left.

I didn't find out what had happened to me until later that night. I e-mailed my boyfriend Erik (at the time a medical student at Cornell) and told him what had happened.

Once again, i was shocked by what he had to say.

I had went into shock and had been looking down the barrel of tachycardia. He asked me if they had tried to elevate my legs or calm me down and only grew angrier when i told him that they hadn't.

To think, i was inches away from a heart attack because of a smashed finger.

As for the fingernail...i lost it. It grew back. And my finger wasn't broken. Or at least i think it wasn't broken. It took me almost another 3 months to get an x-ray. By then, i didn't feel any pain in it anymore.

Ready for Socialized Medicine yet?

VIVA REVOLUTION!