Fun things to do while in quarantine!

Idea 1.) Take up a hobby that you’ve always wanted to explore!

For me that’s always been carving moon rocks into whimsical animal shapes. But if you think it’s difficult acquiring genuine moon rocks under normal circumstances, try it during an international pandemic.

Idea 2.) Spend four hours waiting in your car outside of the local emergency room!

Okay, I should probably confess that this isn’t as fun as it looks. And then let me back up and start this story from the beginning…

A couple of weeks ago Hubby and I were just a few days into our self-imposed quarantine. We were feeling pretty good about it. The pantry was stocked with plenty of canned and dry goods; the fridge was stocked with plenty of things that weren’t going to last very long so we’d have to eat that stuff first; and our bar was stocked with rum, vodka, and at least three kinds of whiskey because a balanced diet is important. I was sitting here at my computer desk searching the internet for reputable moon rock sources, while Hubby was in our basement garage practicing the hobby of wood working. Since he has time for it now and it sounded like fun. And it requires a table saw. The kind with the large, sharp blade that sticks up in the middle of the table and spins so fast you can’t even see it.

You might see where I’m going with this.

I heard the saw running off and on all afternoon. Occasionally when it stopped running I could hear wood planks hitting the floor, or a hammer hitting wood planks. Sometimes it sounded like the hammer hit the floor or the wood planks hit the hammer – I don’t know. I don’t pretend to know what all the noises mean and he doesn’t pretend to know where I can find some damned moon rocks. But then the next time the saw stopped it was followed by a sound I hadn’t heard before: my husband yelling my name in a shrill, desperate manner.

“That’s different” I thought.

“GET YOUR KEYS AND BRING A TOWEL!” I could tell he was at the basement door at that point. My brain finally registered the reason he’d want a towel AND for me to bring my keys, and it probably had nothing to do with someone giving birth down there and everything to do with the table saw. So I sprang into action.

“Towel! Towel!” I thought, running from room to room, “Where am I going to get a towel?!” Then it occurred to me that the bathroom was lousy with those things. Sliding into the bathroom I paused my hand just before I grabbed one from the towel bar because those had been used a few times and my adrenaline fueled hyper-keen senses could actually SEE the bacteria crawling all over them.

“Clean towel!” I yelled as if I was giving instructions to someone else. I opened the towel drawer and paused again because now I was imagining my new, fluffy white towels dripping in blood or brain matter or whatever he had escaping from his body at the moment.

I shoved the new, fluffy white towels to one side and spotted that old, splotchy thing that I meant to toss into the rag bin months ago because using it feels like drying off with sandpaper. Perfect for probably extra sensitive open wounds!

When I reached the basement door I saw the blood before I saw him, and I briefly wondered how he’d gotten that far while missing a leg.

However it was his right hand that he wrapped up so quickly in the towel that I didn’t get to see the damage first. But my brain could do the math.

Table saw + human hand =

Imagined damage.

For a hot moment I had the terrifying thought that I’d have to find his fingers before we could leave. But he didn’t ask me to look, and I was perfectly fine with that if he didn’t really need them that badly. So I packed him into the car and we were off.

You’d be surprised how quickly you can get to the hospital when you never touch the brakes.

We were met at the ER by people in full hazmat gear. I was told to wait in the car and he was escorted deeper into the International House of Plague. And in the car is where I waited for the next four hours. After a while I started wondering how long it would take them to come out and tell me he had coded on the operating table.

But around the time that I decided to leave him for dead and go find an open drive-thru, I saw him walking out of the ER . His right hand wrapped in what must have been forty miles of gauze.

On the way home I was finally able to find out what the damage was since he didn’t even seem to know that himself before we got to the hospital. Turns out all his fingers managed to stay attached to his hand, but not without some damage.

You don’t touch a running table saw blade and not get your pinky split like cord wood and 25% of your thumb left somewhere on the garage floor. At the very least.

Actual damage.

The ER doctor managed to Frankenstein his pinky back into one piece, but the thumb is just open flesh that’s going to have to figure out how to grow skin back on its own. But Hubby will live, even if his hand never looks quite the same.

In the meantime I’ve been involuntarily thrust into the role of triage nurse. Since I’m the one who changes the bandages every day. Two weeks later and I only faint if I focus my eyes now, so that’s an improvement.

But hey, it’s something to do while in quarantine! Though, if I’m honest, I think I’d rather be carving moon rocks into whimsical animal shapes.