Never Catch A Falling Cactus: A True Story.

Today I planned on a totally cool post, completely organized with plenty of pictures, ideas and all that fun stuff.  But, it seems that my (long) day turned out to be a bit more interesting than I thought it would be, so I'm going to share it.  Today was supposed to be a free day for me.  Reading, laying out by the pool in the backyard, studying, TV- all the good things I posted about yesterday.  Due to the time change, I've been having a difficult time going to bed at my normal time.  So, I stayed up generally late expecting to sleep in.

Well.  My phone rings at 7:23am (to be exact) and it's Nick (the boyfriend).  I roll over, half asleep and answer the phone.  Nick had left for work this morning around 6:45am, so he hadn't been gone for very long.  He tells me that I need to come pick him up from work, to which I reply, "Why?" since he still had about 6 more hours left to work.  "I need you to pick me up and take me to the hospital..." he says, which of course makes me perk up immediately.  I begin to freak out and ask why and the reason was pretty much the last I had expected.  "Well, I was working and saw a cactus that was falling off a rack, so I reached out and caught it with my bare hand."

What.

I know, right?  So, I throw some clothes on, race out the door and head to his work which is literally 5 minutes away from our house.  There are a few things you need to know before I continue with the story.  The first is that Nick works at a home improvement store part time when he doesn't have class.  The second is that he works in the outside lawn and garden department, meaning that he deals with plants and those sorts of things all day.  And, lastly, the cactus was wrapped in brown paper (because it was a newly received item), so he could not see what it was exactly... and there was a 50% chance that it was a succulent and a 50% chance that it was a cactus.  Terrible odds.

By the time I got there, he had pulled out sixteen spines from his hand, counted twenty-three holes total and had a piece of a spine broken off and wedged up through his middle finger.  Once we got to the ER and checked in, I really wanted to take a picture and he was actually in a cheerful mood.  But, then the pain set in so backed off of the photo op idea.  After I filled out all the paperwork (his right hand was the injured one) and X-rays to check for damage to the bones, the piece wedged in his finger was removed giving him some mobility back to his hand.  Then, they discovered another piece which could possibly just be a sprained tendon and decided to leave it there to either work its way out, or heal if it is the latter.  Needless to say, we spent all morning there and by early afternoon we were filling his RX (which took SIX hours- we went home, no worries) for antibiotics and pain killers.  Sigh.  The day continued on with back and forth trips to Walgreens, his work and the hospital again to pick up X-Rays and now here I am at 8pm, finally settling in. 

Tomorrow we are going to an orthopedic surgeon for follow up.  Since he can't drive due to immobility and the fact that he will be on heavy duty pain meds, I get to play chauffeur.  =]  Just because I can't do all the other fun stuff I had planned for break, I can at least look on the bright side... quality time with the boyfriend hooray!  Until next time...