One Crazy Thumber

All I’ve wanted to do since getting the tip of my thumb bit off by a dog is write about it. While I can write this, it is clumsy and hurts a little.

I went to a campout in Vermont. It is down the road from where Bill Wilson, one of the founders of AA, was born. It is a three-and-a-half-hour trip. A friend and I and our two dogs drove up through beautiful western Massachusetts and then into Vermont. 

Within fifteen minutes of being at the campsite, another dog attacked my dog. Her owner couldn’t get his dog off of Rufus so I ran over to save my little baby. I was going for a choke hold on the bigger dog, what looked like a lab shepherd mix, and suddenly I felt a streak of hot heat drag across my thumb. Without looking, I knew it was bad.

I looked down and my thumb looked like a canoe that filled up with thick red blood. I stumbled around in shock while deciding how I can get away with not going to a hospital to deal with this. A man from another campsite was able to separate the dogs and Rufus was saved and only had some minor scratches on his ear and the top of his head. I was suddenly surrounded by concerned neighboring campers seeing if they could help. I sat down and felt nauseous.

One lady held my arm above my head while another lady texted 911 since service was really limited there. We got the owner of the other dog to get his stuff together so that his dog wouldn’t get taken away. Vermont has some strict laws about dogs biting people.

I stayed calm and went to a breathing exercise where I counted my breaths to five and then backward and then forward. I knew at that moment that there was nothing I could do but accept the help around me and get centered. Of course in situations like these, the times of extreme crisis, I am calm and cool. It’s the small things that will send me on a spiral.

I was covered in blood and feeling light-headed and so thirsty. I really didn’t want to go to a hospital. Because of all the trips to the hospital I have had to make through injuries and cancer, I really don’t feel comfortable there. It reminds me of my mortality and the awful fragility of our physical bodies. The smells, sounds, and sterile surroundings bring on an existential dread. My mind kept racing to see if there was a way to just glue the wound shut. It looked like half of my thumb was gone.

An ambulance bounced up the dirt road and two EMTs got me and brought me to the ambulance while telling me that because the local ERs aren’t equipped for this kind of injury, I would be taking a helicopter to Albany, New York. Like my tramp stamp, this was getting ABSURD. 

We drove down the dirt road while the EMT tried to get an IV in me. Because of my long battle with cancer, I don’t have easy veins already, but in a bouncy off-road ambulance, it is nearly impossible. The first EMT tried four times and I had four bandaids on my arm by the time I got to the airfield. The other EMT was able to find one usable vein and got an IV in.

I was wheeled to a helicopter and loaded in through the back. Then we were above Vermont and NY while the Canadian wildfires made one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. It was hard to fathom since it was so absurd and surreal to be flying to Albany, New York because I was missing some of my thumb. 

I was taken out of the helicopter and into the hospital and into a trauma room where I was surrounded by the most attractive group of medical professionals I have ever seen, in real life or on TV. They were all young, tattooed, wearing Crocs, and just beautiful. I of course had them laughing and charmed. While I had a missing thumb, I was very calm about it. 

I got an x-ray where they could see that the tip of the bone was gone. They sent me back to the triage room, but shortly after that they said that several people were on their way and that they were going to have to put me in the hallway.

My phone had less than 10% battery life, so I had to be sparing with using it since I needed to communicate when I get out and I didn’t know when that would be. Nicole had not gone to the camping trip so people at the campsite were sending her texts when they had enough service and trying to explain what was going on. 

I sat in the hallway for several hours while I watched all the people come in by ambulance, helicopter, or through the doors themselves. I saw stabbing and shooting victims, motorcycle and automobile accidents, heart attacks, and other severe cases that made me feel silly lying there with my thumb wrapped up. It was the Friday night of the Fourth of July weekend, so one of the busiest weekends for ERs.

A few hours in a doctor cleaned my thumb thoroughly and a few hours after that they took an EKG where they were alerted that I had a heart murmur, but this was already known and I just explained that I used to party.

I was at this ER for 11 hours and the doctors didn’t know if they were going to do surgery or not, but in case I was going to get surgery, I was to fast. I had barely eaten anything on that day, so I started dreaming about hamburgers and pizza.

At 7:30 in the morning, they kicked me out. I let one of my fellow campers know and went in search of food in Albany, NY. I walked down a commercial street with my hand bandage and still wearing my bloody shirt. I didn’t feel too bad, since it was near the hospital I’m sure people like me are wandering around every day.

I got some supplies at a CVS and then became the weirdo at Starbucks charging my phone and going through a bunch of hospital paperwork and CVS supplies. I took up a whole table and two chairs. I made things weird by making eye contact with everyone and smiling. I wanted all of these Albany strangers to not think I’m crazy. I don’t think I was successful, a mother was very adamant that her kids not go near me.

I called Nicole and let her know that I was fine and out of the hospital. We both just laughed at the absurdity of it all, but she was very upset about the other dog and dog owner and her dad was already talking about lawyers. I just didn’t feel that we needed to go that route.

My friend picked me up and we drove back to the campsite. Upstate NY and Vermont are very beautiful and reminded me of parts of Eugene and west towards the coast. Forested hills and dairy farm valleys. Every farmhouse was the dream house I wanted to live in. 

I got to enjoy camping on Saturday night. All I wanted to do is sit by a fire. I haven’t gone camping in a long time and I just wanted to be by a fire and talk shit and laugh. That was what we did, we sat around the fire making s’mores and laughing.

A few days later I saw a hand specialist and he told me we were going to see how much will heal, and if all of it heals, I will just go on with my life with a shorter thumb on my right hand, but if it doesn’t, it may require a graft. There is also a possibility that some of the nail cells survived and they will start growing all weird and disgusting, and those would have to be removed.

I got to take time off of work since I can’t use my right hand hardly at all. I have had to rely on my left hand a lot, but I keep forgetting and finding myself finding hard objects with the new tip of my right thumb and causing me pain. It is just starting to feel better and I’m not eating Tylenol and Ibuprofen all day. 

Losing the thumb awaken nightmares and sleep issues that I used to have. I have had just severely gory and violent dreams that wake me up in a panic wondering where I am and finally seeing that I’m in my house, I then get severely homesick for Oregon. My therapist says it is normal for medical trauma to awaken everything. Pain is screaming for my brain to wake up the demons. 

The embarrassing thing is that I am having some vain thoughts about how I will look when I walk around with my thumb nub. I don’t really have a high opinion of my looks already, but reaching out my right hand for handshakes is now going to be awkward and weird. Either they will ask about it or worse they won’t and I won’t be able to tell them I was trying to save my dog. 

I find out whether I need surgery or not next week. I will return to work the week after, and any magic that may have been cast during this calamity has faded into the Vermont skies.