I am a total wimp with anything related to the body. Well, anything related to cutting, stabbing, sewing, or basically showing blood oozing from a body. I don’t handle it very well. It’s very nauseating and makes me very squeemish. I know what you’re all thinking, “how the heck, Amy, are you going to take care of your boys when they have a laceration or broken bone?” Trust me, I’ve asked myself that very same question, most recently today.

This morning, I decided to skip out on the Y (bad move) and stay home to finish up some much needed yard work. My husband spent last night trimming up all of our bushes in the front yard so that I could get busy mulching today. It started out well. The morning was perfect, a little overcast with a cool breeze that was seeming to combat the humidity. I brought Henry outside and put him on his blanket so he could get some much needed Vitamin D. Davey joined us with his rake and shovel, which he drove handsomely around from the backyard in his jeep.

Shortly after cleaning up the clippings from last night, Davey decided that he really wanted to go inside and watch Frozen. Fine by me seeing as how it’s a lot easier to get work done when I’m not having to replace all the mulch he’s throwing out (having my little helper is really counter productive most days) or chasing him as he decides he wants to play in the next door neighbor’s flower garden. I took a short break to get Davey and Henry situated before heading back out to finish up my task at hand.

I pick up bag after bag, lifting them with my legs and throwing them over my shoulders. I was going to make the best of the fact that I had skipped the Y. This was going to be my weight-lifting/cardio class, plus it had an added bonus…a freshly mulched yard and another item marked off of my To Do List hanging on the fridge. After hauling about 20 bags, I took another quick breather and broke into the bags and spreading mulch, and here’s where things started going down hill.

I was periodically taking breaks to come back inside to check on the boys. Davey is notorious for getting into things he shouldn’t be in and well I didn’t want Henry to be wailing the entire time. So, in my effort to try to speed things along, I took a short cut with cutting open the bags. I took my pair of scissors, opened them up so the blades were forming a “V” and started to use one of the blades as a razor. I was moving right along, holding the bags up against my leg and then slicing into them. It went so fast. Before I knew it, I was 3/4th of the way done with the mulch! And this is when it happened.

I held up one of the bags against my left leg, opened up the scissors, slashed the blade across and through the bag and right into my left thigh. Hold on, I’m getting nauseous as I type this and may need to take a break. (Cue Vivaldi’s Four Seasons). Ok, I’m back now.

For a moment, I didn’t dare look at my leg. Maybe it was just a little knick, but then I started feeling a warm liquid rolling down and that’s when I looked and when I started to get a little faint. I’d sliced far enough into my leg that I could see the interior of the skin and it looked like chicken that had been sitting, thawed out, uncooked on the counter for days. Great! Now I’m not going to be able to eat chicken for a while.

After a quick trip across the street to my retired doctor and nurse neighbor to verify if I should try to have it stitched up (they looked at my like I’d gone crazy for asking such a stupid question), I called my aunt to stay with the boys and drove myself to the emergency room where I found out that I didn’t hit the muscle, but the laceration was 2 cm deep. Of course, I had to tell the story to the nurses and doctors as to how I did this. And of course they all asked me if I knew how to appropriately use scissors. Yes! I’m not an idiot (well only slightly).

I did make it back home to finish up the rest of the mulch before taking the rest of the afternoon off. I do blame this injury on being a mother. How could I, you ask. Well, easy. I seem to have left my brain at the turn off to Motherhood Lane years ago when I decided to become a mother. AND…if I hadn’t been rushing back and forth to check on the boys, then perhaps I wouldn’t have done this. It is what it is and the past is the past.

On a more positive note…Davey thinks the stitches on my leg are the coolest thing he’s ever seen and it gave me an excellent opportunity to discuss scissor safety with him.

For the average person I run into on the street, I will no longer go by this story. The new story is that I got into a knife fight with some baddies who were looking to hurt my babies. I will deny the true story moving forward.