Bent and Broken

Chris had a fencing match with his table saw this morning, and the saw won. It was about 10:45am, I was sitting down for work, and I heard the typical buzz of him cutting wood in the garage. Next thing I heard was something cutting not-wood, he screamed, and I ran as he was yelling at me that he cut his finger off. In typical Kim Paternoster fashion, I freaked out. In typical Chris Larsen fashion, he stayed stoic, calm, told me how to tourniquet his arm and how to fill a bag full of ice so he could stick his hand in it. He told me to unlock the car so he could sit down, and thought HE was going to have to drive ME to the ER. (Note to self: I really have to work on that panic thing, but geezus who has the time...)

NOTE TO READERS: This was actually a boo boo... turns out, you should NOT stick a severed anything directly on water or ice. You should stick it in a bag, then stick THAT bag in another bag full of ice. As the skin dries out, it shrivels, and it can make it so things can't be reattached.

ANYWAY... I have pictures, Chris asked for them for the blog. IT'S NOT PRETTY. Really, if you must, they are HERE, but do NOT email me if you end up having nausea.

I want to thank Amy (you were a bright light in a dismal outlook and did a fabulous job taking care of my best friend, and seriously... let's do a beer, you are walking distance from our house, we owe you a few), Ryan (funny guy and thanks for helping us deal with the whole pee in the bottle thing), and Chris (you are the reason we are at Stanford Hospital, and without YOU, Chris would have lost the finger). I hope all of you went home and had a beer or three tonight.

It's 12:16am here at Stanford Hospital, and he's just come out of surgery after 5+ hours. He should be here within the hour. They were able to reattach the middle finger, despite how it looked. It's been a very long day, and looking to be a long 3-4 month recovery for him.

I can't wait to see him, even though he's going to be completely out of it (somehow I'm thinking it may not be much different than some of those nights on Sometimes Island). It's really hard when your best friend is going through so much pain, and there's not a thing you can do about it. It's even worse for him, but I'll tell you one thing - Chris Larsen is one of the strongest people I've ever known. "On a scale of 1-10, where's your pain", and he can actually SAY 10, and you know he means it... and he's SAYING it. Think about that.

Keep him in your thoughts. The rest of you woodworkers... get a damned blade stop mechanism. The money spent is a hell of a lot better than what this could end up being.