ARTICLE - Cold Hands Warmed By Blood

 

Sometimes you have one of those days, when everything appears to be pitching you  towards some unforseen and precipitous edge. One bleak Monday in the second week of January, I'm working in the shop. Custom, as is usual in the post Christmas Winter months, declining dramatically with every day. We are a few days away from shutting for a few weeks respite from all that  I don't really want to be there, it has to be said. Its cold, its damp and hardly anyone around. Two thirds of the shops in The Courtyard are shut today.

No matter how close I place my bodily form to our oil heater my hands are remaining resolutely cold. I'm cutting and sewing handmade jotter notepads, in order to keep my hands and mind occupied, to be usefully productive.  Part of this task involves trimming covers and their paper inserts to the same size. An extremely sharp scalpel blade resting in my fingers, obtaining the cleanest cut edges possible.

Whilst both hands remain perpetually chilled the dexterity of my arthritic fingers correspondingly declines. Working with them feels as though I'm attempting to do an incredibly fiddly clock repair using sausages sleeved in thick knitted gloves. There has been one small nick to the forefinger of my right hand already. Then, as I'm trimming one notepad, the forefinger of my left hand drifts a fraction too close and into the way of the blade. Taking a thin sliver of flesh off the surface from my finger tip.  Though its not huge, a considerable amount of blood is nonetheless now pumping out of it.

I try my very best not to do the cliche squealing camp panic. Its just a small cut. But its bleeding like a hose pipe! Keep your cool. Where is the shop first aid kit? Did we replenish it recently? Bet we didn't. You'll find it but discover there isn't one plaster big enough.  In the first aid kit, I fumble around looking for a plaster suitable for this substantial finger cut. I wrap one around. Completely hopeless in the face of the red flood. I move onto a larger more absorbent version. This works momentarily, but quickly turns scarlet red. I try again, tighter this time, with slightly longer lasting results. 

I take to wearing a silicone glove to deter blood being smeared absolutely every where, and the shop end up looking like a scene from a slasher movie. I stop making the notepads. I stay on for another hour. During which we have our one humbling customer of the day. That's enough, time to go home. I ring the husband, who comes to rescue me. Well, he picks me up in the car.

Having now armed ourselves with replenishments for our first aid supplies, we head for home. Clean the wound, fresh absorbent plaster, savlon, cotton wool, dressing tape. The result ( see above photo ) may look like completely pampered overkill to you, but it did work. Hand above heart, thumb pressed on the area of the cut. Looks like I won't be swimming for a while. 

This bulky bandage on a finger is oh so recognisable. Before the arrival of modern day elastoplast there was only the heavy duty cloth version. The one with an adhesive backing that could double as duct tape if you wished. Adhering to human flesh better than any super glue. My skin,  however, had a strong allergic reaction to them. Every time they were put on, over even a minor cut, the skin beneath became a swollen, itchy, spotty rash. In one childhood incidence, a relatively small gash was prevented from healing up altogether, and almost, I emphasise almost, got infected.

Every time, whenever I had a fall or grazed anything that normally might be quickly dabbed with TCP and covered with a plaster, out would come the cotton dressing and bandages. Depending on the limb or where the damage to my body was, dictated how elaborate the dressing would end up being. The sight of my digit appendage copiously swaddled in lint as it currently was, was quite a familiar throwback to an earlier era.

As soon as you attempt a return to doing what you normally do, the bandaged finger reveals its true nature as an impediment to life, liberty and the pursuit of productivity. Compared to which the wearing of a mask in a pandemic is the mildest inconvenience going. Doing the washing up, not possible. Taking a shower, not possible. Lifting anything, holding anything firmly, not possible. Doing anything remotely fiddly, like tie a shoe lace, not possible. 

Getting your todger out of your trousers in order to piss, though possible, involves quite a lot of embarrassing fumbling around trying to locate the little devil. Then pointing it in the direction of the toilet pan without placing your bandaged finger directly in the line of fire. Do not attempt this in a public toilet or you will be in receipt of some very disapproving glances.

Within a few days the big bandage could be downgraded to an absorbent plaster, and subsequently to a transparent everyday plaster. Why does it need to be transparent? Who the hell knows. It has been fascinating to observe how skin recovers so quickly. All without my having to do anything, other than whinge and play the poor me card. A week later there's only the suggestible blip of a scab left. I'll have moved on soon, quickly forgetting how easily vulnerable to injury my body is. Back to the mode of 'let's pretend I am really the invincible man'.