August 6, 2010

White Dog and Quinn had the medical kit out when Steve came home for lunch. Just before he came home, Steve called to tell me that he had sliced off part of the tip of a finger, about cardboard thickness, while working on the physical building model he was constructing.

Model making is pretty much of a dead art since the advent of 3D computer modeling but for some reason the potential client for the zoo exhibit Steve's firm is trying to win wanted an old-fashioned display model. Steve is the only one in his office that retains the skills to complete the task and so has been unplugged from the computer and thrown back into the stone age world of exacto knives and foamcore.

Of course those type of slices to particularly the fingertip are stingy, painful and gush blood at an impressive rate. When he arrived home, the paper towel he had wrapped around the silly bandaid was soaked. Both White Dog and The Other White Dog did some preliminary diagnosis by sniffing the finger; then White Dog sniffed Steve's eyeballs (she always does this when we are sick or hurt); and TOWD leaned against Steve's leg to check his pulse.

They moved to either side as I washed the area thoroughly and applied antiseptic gel. White Dog hopped up on the bed and held the box of gauze strips as I cut and fit one to cover the tip. Quinn kept Steve busy petting him while we worked. White Dog and my toughest task was to figure out how to apply the medical tape so that the area was completely covered and would not leak or slide off the tip and yet allow Steve to continue working on the model. She held Steve's hand down with one paw so he would not wiggle around.

Finally, we were done. Steve's finger was wrapped. The bleeding appeared to be slowing. Things seemed under control. White Dog and TOWD conferred briefly and suggested that Steve lie on the bed with his arm elevated for twenty minutes just to get past the trauma...AND that he eat some turkey (protein) to put some color back into his pale cheeks (they also suggesting that it was customary to share with your caregivers). Steve resisted White Dog's prescription to take the rest of the day off for bed rest and stress-relieving Eskie petting...insisting that he had a deadline to meet. So back to work he went AEA (Against Eskie Advice).