Wednesday, Jan. 4

Well, it's been a day. Started just fine at around 7:30 a.m. Did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. Once I was ready for the day, I went to Mother's house to help her take a shower. She came to our house afterward.

After that, we decided we wanted to go to another town for a matinee showing of "War Horse." But upon re-reading the theater information online, I discovered that matinee showings are only on Saturday and Sunday. So if nothing comes up, we'll plan to go Saturday.

So, since we would be home all afternoon, I decided to make a double batch of tomato soup. The electric can opener doesn't work right, so I resorted to the old-fashioned manual one. The lid didn't come completely off, so it was standing up. The next thing I did was really stupid. I laid a package of frozen onions/peppers on the counter and tried to hit it with my right hand. Instead, my finger met with that sharp lid.

It sliced through the skin down to the fatty layer. Oddly, I didn't feel it...I guess it was such a swift, clean cut, that my brain didn't have time to register it. Hubbie immediately took me to the urgent care clinic, where I was told that although the wound looked wicked, it's actually superficial. I had a choice of stitches or bandaging, and I chose bandaging. Some sort of dissolving bandage was applied, and then it was stabilized with a self-adhesive bandage. I'm to remove the self-adhesive bandage at night and encase the finger in a metal "frog." The wound will take two weeks to mend, and I was told it'll leave a scar.

I was given a combination tetanus/diphtheria shot. I commented that I'd had diphtheria as a child, but was told the shot came as a combination, and it wouldn't hurt to have a booster of the diphtheria serum.

The doctor's assistant and the nurse debated if I should be given the tetanus/diphtheria/pertussis combination, or just the diphtheria/tetanus one. It depended on my age, and the assistant thought I was 60. The nurse said she was sure my chart said I was 69.

"We decided," she said, "that we want to look as good as you when we're you're age." That made me feel a little bit better about hurting myself today.

I was also pleased that my blood pressure reading was 120/62.

Just before we left for the clinic, Mother's occupational therapist arrived. She was still here when we got back. She'd had time to accompany Mother back to her house, observe her exercise routine, watch her use the new transfer bench/chair to get in and out of the bathtub, and see what adjustments had been done to the house (like completely clearing the hallway, so she can use her walker without obstacles).

With Hubbie's help, I'd managed to finish making the tomato soup (after I'd stopped the bleeding and taped my wound), before we went to the clinic. The simmering soup really smelled good when we came in the door. It was making the OT hungry, too. The soup wasn't for supper, though. We had leftover stir fry later.

We weren't home from the clinic long before I remembered that the nurse had said she was going to give me some rubber gloves and tape to use when I shower. And I'd also forgotten to stop by the Catholic Church to get a mass card.

So off we went again. At the Church office, the lady who helped me complimented me on the color of my hair, which she said suited my skin tone. She might have been trying to make me feel better, after I'd told her the card (and mass) were in remembrance of a classmate who died recently. "It really makes you feel vulnerable, doesn't it?" she said. Yes, it does.

Hubbie accompanied Mother home after supper, and then we spent the evening watching TV, including a 1993 movie called, "Sommersby," starring Richard Gere, Jodie Foster, Bill Pullman, and James Earl Jones. Just after the Civil War, a woman thinks her husband has been killed in the war. But he returns, a changed man, not as unpleasant as before. So is he actually the husband, or an imposter?