Bookshelves And Blood Loss

I think it may be that time of year again. Summer, when I seem to be the most accident-prone. Maybe it's because I'm more active with the kids, or I'm more motivated to do things around the house. It's dangerous whenever I get moving a lot. I'm very, very clumsy. My parents actually called me "Boo-Boo Baby" as a young child. I had a knack for injuring myself and my specialty was falling upstairs. No, not down like regular kids. I was special.

So I'm rearranging the kids' playroom upstairs, not going too crazy or anything, but just trying to open up a bit more floor space for building with blocks and doing puzzles, that sort of thing. I decided to move their bookcase which is pretty large and is of course, packed completely with books. Now a smart person, one who thinks things through, might have removed all the books to make it easier to move. I was only half-smart and removed the heaviest and biggest books from the bottom shelf. It made it a lot easier to shuffle around, but I still wasn't able to pick it right up off the floor. So I'm dragging and pushing this thing while the kids are reading some books and I manage to get my right foot stuck under the unit and as I wrench it free I feel something slice into the skin of my big toe. It stings a bit but I keep working with the bookcase and then I catch sight of lots of redness, gushing from my foot. Now it hurts. And the bleeding is not stopping.

My first thought is, I'm going to bleed all over the carpet. I don't want to clean the carpet today...anything but that. So I pick up my foot and hop out of the room, calling to the kids, "Mommy's got a boo-boo. I'll be right back...Don't go near that bookshelf!!"

So I bleed down the stairs, trying to not fall down them as well. I'm annoyed that I'm getting blood all over the staircase now. Then it occurs to me that I might have hit some major blood vessel and I wonder if I should call 911. And then I notice how grubby my feet are from walking around outside barefoot and decide there is no way I am calling 911. I would rather lose my toe.

By the time I get to the bathroom the flow of blood is now down to more of a trickle, less like gushing and I realize I am going to be okay. I get it all cleaned off and David comes in to see what happened.

"Did you hurt your foot, mommy?"
"Yeah, pretty bad. It hurts but I think I just need a Bandaid and I'll be okay."
"Did you cut your toe off?"
"No, nothing like that. I just cut it kind of bad."
"Oh." He sounds a little disappointed. "I'll call the hospital, just in case!" He picks up his play phone and makes the call.

Don't worry there, David, the summer's young yet. I'll bet you'll be needing to make that call for Mommy before too long...