The Worst Blog Episode Ever

Three weeks have passed since Elliot's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day - long enough that the story can finally be told without dad collapsing in a hyperventilating fit of horror, shock and debilitating guilt.

SCENE OF THE CRIME.

In case you don't know the back story, the image above provides a rather poor approximation of the horror of May 27. At 6:58 am, Elliot and Dad were giving Mom a "wake-up call" - essentially a five minute warning. Dad closed the bedroom door just as Elliot thrust his hand forward, and the pinky of his left hand got pinched in the pivot-end of the door.

Pinched is such a poor word to use; in reality, a fair sized chunk of his very tiny finger was practically sheared off.

Okay, waves of paternal horror are rushing back, so I'm just going to skip over the next hour -- let's catch up in the Emergency Room:

Saddest Faces Ever.
[Ed. note: Sharon has requested that I explain this "ghetto mom" look: the moment the injury occurred we sprung into triage mode and hopped in the car wearing whatever we had on. i was in jeans and an undershirt; elliot still in his pajamas. Sharon had to grab whatever was w/in arms' reach. Fun fact: later that morning she actually had to teach a class wearing this same garb, hat included]

Considering the injury he experienced, Elliot was amazingly composed through most of the ordeal.

Ugh, what a horrible morning.

How amazing is our kid?!

Seriously, his finger almost falls off and he's happy because the x-ray tech gave him a baby elephant sticker.

Okay, fun's over.

Lest you forget how terrible the experience was for everyone.

These photos were all taken using sharon's cel phone camera, by the way. There was some internal debate as to whether i should be taking photos at this point. Luckily for everyone, this is as close as you get to the gristly finger work.

The best approximation I could think of for Elliot's injury is Beaker's mouth [sharon prefers a pez dispenser, but Beaker makes me laugh]. Basically a giant flap radiating downward from just below the pinky nail, along the pad end of the finger, ending near the first knuckle. That tiny amount of dermis was all that was connecting that flap/chunk/mouth to the rest of the finger. so now you know.

"Woah, what the hell just happened?"

Energy depletion is beginning to kick in. No breakfast + hand trauma + hours in the ER + lots of crying + heavy sweating =

instant sleep.

At this point we could have sat him next to a paint mixer and he wouldn't have so much as twitched. [Note: that Thanksgiving Turkey in the foreground is actually his bandaged hand.]



Okay, jumping forward four days and one misguided attempt at fun (wading pool, with E's hand in a plastic bag to prevent water intrusion -- fail) and we had to change his MASSIVE dressing.

Ready for some close ups of the pinky?

Uh, but first let's enjoy the verbernum bush and rhodedendron in our backyard for a moment or two.

Oh, look, a beautiful petal from our family dogwood tree.

Sigh, a cucumber plant begins its incredible journey to maturity.

Oh, and here's a happy, delicious free range chicken squatting in a colorful bed of peppers on our grill.

Uhhh.... oh, and here's Cleo saying 'hi' in the most pathetic manner possible.

OKAY, here's the finger already.

Interesting fact about Elliot's injury: most attempts to clearly photograph the carnage failed. I kept thinking about those people in The Ring who watched that damned videotape and then tried to take polaroids of each other.

Helen's fancy camera was able to capture more of the gruesome details. (btw, you can click on any image for uncomfortable closeups)

stitchapalooza

this expression pretty much sums it all up.

Okay, here we are two weeks out from the injury. Believe it or not, the Physician/Plastic, Reconstructive, Hand and Cosmetic Surgeon we've been taking Elliot to saw lots of progress at this point.




And here we are just a couple of days ago, three weeks out. At this point, it looks like the tip of Elliot's pinky has been replaced with a dried currant. Again, the doctor likes what he sees.



And through it all Elliot has exhibited remarkable resiliency and an immense capacity to adapt to only using one hand.


See? Everything's fine! (this deserves clicking through for the close up). Everyone tells us that Elliot will never remember that anything happened to his finger when he was a baby, so I guess this blog entry can serve as, hell i don't know. maybe he doesn't ever get to read this one.