Three Years Ago...

I was reading Gina's blog about her husband's trip to the hossy b/c he inhaled too much smoke at a recent fire (he's a firefighter) and it really brought me back to a horrific time in the Burns' household. Now beware. There are some graphic images that will be posted to help tell my story(and please excuse the quality, these are digi pictures taken of my film pics).

The story of the day Nate cut off his finger.

I had a full day of teaching rambuncious 1st graders. Actually, I remember quite well that the class was great that day, very sweet and did well with their work. It was a Tuesday... Feb 3, 2003. I believe. I went to the gym, the local Y in town where we lived. At the time we lived in Toccoa GA, the town where we went to college. I was in my 2nd year of teaching, and Nate was finishing up school. We were just starting to talk about searching for a church to work in. Nate, at the time, was the Site Manager of Camp Toccoa. He did alot of maintenance and janitorial work there. We loved it, the job had a lovely perk of a house, private in the woods. We had our own bridge into the house and everything!

So anyways, I had been to the gym, ran 4 miles and did my usual leg weights. After the gym, I went grocery shopping. Its about 5 pm now. I bought everythig we needed for a couple weeks, and then went home. It didn't fase me that Nate wasn't home yet... he usually came in after me.

I walk into our home, and hear the beep beep of our answering machine. I went ahead and put away all of the frozen items, but then the beeping really annoyed me, so I answered the machine. It was Mary, the assitant director of Camp, she also lived in a house on site.

She said "Nate has cut his finger, when you can, we are in Stephens Co. Hospital." I honestly thought it wasn't a bad cut! A couple stitches maybe....

So I left all of the rest of the groceries on the floor, and left to the hospital... which thankfully was a mile down the road.

I show up, and there is Mary... and she looks so happy to see me. She shakes her head sadly and said, "I didn't want to tell you over the phone. But ist worse than you think. You just made it... Nate's about to go into surgery." I was dumbfounded... then she hands me his wedding ring. What?!?!?

Literally, that moment Nate is wheeled past me. He is covered in blood. There is too much blood. I start to cry and asked what happened. Nate is in shock and just smiles at me. "I cut my finger off" he says.

The wheel him away into surgery and the nurses lead me to his hospital room. I waited by myself for the first hour. Someone... I don't know who... called our pastor at the time, and he came and sat with me the last hour.

I remember calling my mom... she picks up and was like "Hi! How are you?" I was all "I'm fine... but Nate cut his finger off, he's in surgery, and I'm all alone!" She starts crying and then feels so bad for me, because she is 12 hours away. And then I had to call Nate's mom.... I don't ever want to do that again. She was 13 hours away... it wasn't good.

Nate's surgery is finally over, and he is wheeled back into his room after he recovers. I remember him shaking violently asking for chapstick. Isn't that funny?

When he finally comes to his senses (well... as close to anyways) he tells me the story.

He was using a log splitter to cut up some wood for camp. He noticed that a peice of wood was drifting too far to the side, so he grabbed at it. The splitter caught his glove, and took it through the machine. Nate says that he looked down, and went into shock. He automatically starting putting pressure on his finger, and walked himself a quater of a mile back to camp's office building. He called my cell. I didn't have it on. He called our house. I wasn't home. He calls Mary, knowing she is next door. Mary picks up~

"Hi Mary, its Nate. Can you do me a favor?"
"Sure Nate, what do you need?"
"I just cut my finger off, can you take me to the hospital?"
"WHAT? SURE! HOLD ON!"

She walks out of her house to see Nate walking out of the office building, the wrong way...

"Nate? Where are you going?"
"I have to go get the rest of my finger."

Nate had left it back in the glove by the splitter! Mary runs back into her house for some ice in a bag, and helps Nate collect it up and takes him to the hossy.

Nate spent 3 very long days in the hospital. BTW~ it was his left index finger. We later found out that Stephens County Hos. had a brand new surgeon on staff, a hand specialist. He worked hard to save Nate's finger. If he hadn't of been there... none of the other surgeon's would have tried, and Nate wouldn't have the 4/5ths of the finger he has now.

Nate also had leech therapy. He was the first in our county... we had special pharmacized leeches flown in from New York. And b/c he was the first in the county, we always had extra people (staff) in the room curious to watch and see them go to it.

After Nate finally came home, it was still such an ordeal. Nate wore the special sling for a few months, had leech therapy for a few months.... we had to sleep in different beds so that I didn't accidently jostle his hand. He went on Worker's Comp... which if you have ever been on that you know that it doesn't cover the bills you need to, so we are still recovering from some of that debt we went into. Nate has had 2 more surgies to fix up and pretty up his finger some. You can't really tell its shorter, unless you look close. But he still favors it, and doesn't use it much, he uses his middle finger for everything now. I remeber cracking jokes that he couldn't get drafted now since his gun hand was handicapped (he's a leftie).

WOW! This was therapuetic! My guts are all tossed about right now, but it felt good to write it out. Thanks for making it thus far!