Kristen and the Continents: Beware of Avocados

I've typed avocado so many times in the past 48 hours my phone now tries to autocorrect half my words to avocado. Saturday night I was excited about embracing my Texas roots and had just finished preparing some excellent fajitas. The last step was cutting the avocado. My attempt to carefully remove the pit resulted in the knife slipping off the pit and slicing through my finger (the base of my left hand ring finger). Due to the amount of a mess it made, we immediately went to the ER. Fortunately I was seen quickly, stitched up and under control. Since they were scared I had cut a nerve, the sent me to another hospital with a hand specialist. I was scheduled for surgery on Sunday. I was impressed at how friendly everyone in the hospital was and how efficiently things seemed to be dealt with. Since it was an accident, everything is covered and there is no cost to me. I was amazed at how thorough they were and spared nothing, even though there is no monetary benefit to them.

I arrived at 7am for surgery, having fasted and no liquids since midnight. They assess all the patients and then prioritize the order of surgery. Being unfamiliar with the public health system I didn't expect to wait too long, especially since the waiting room population seemed small and i seemed about fifth on the list. WRONG. Around 4pm we had been waiting so long they gave us a room with lazy boys and control of the remote. Around 5pm my hopes got up when I was changed into my hospital gown. Around 6pm, they came to pick me up for surgery but then notified me that an emergency had come in and it would be another hour and a half. After 18 hours of no food and water and 12 hours of waiting, i finally had a breakdown. Fortunately I recovered and at 8pm I was finally taken into surgery. They said since it was so late I would have to stay overnight, so Sean went home, but when I woke up they said they were calling him to pick me up. Everything went smoothly and the staff continued to be extremely friendly and helpful. Since they knew i was starving they immediately gave me some food, but I had to laugh when they handed me an orange. The nurse asked me if she should peel it for me, considering I only had one functioning hand.

The good news is that I have had absolutely no pain. I guess that is the advantage to cutting a nerve. Every once in awhile I have had the really annoying sensation you get when your hand starts waking up after going numb. I'll definitely take that over pain though. I have the stitches for about two weeks and then it will be between 6 months and a year before the nerve is completely grown back and i have my feeling back. right now the entire side of my finger is completely numb. My middle finger gets a bit freaked out because it doesn't know what its touching. In other good news, it was about 36 hours later, but I finally got to eat my fajitas! I made sure Sean cut the avocado though.

The saddest part for me is that all my paperwork says avocado knife injury, so now I am going to go into some database and one day be a statistic on how many people injure themselves on avocados.

On a happier note, the weekend before Sean and I went up north to his parent's place in Tutukaka for the weekend. We took a few trips to the beach, did a short walk and played some cards. Sean and I did a stunning hike up Mt. Manaia in the Whangarei Heads on the way back to Auckland and the pictures don't really do it justice. It was fun to see more gorgeous scenery. The weirdest thing was that the prettiest bit actually contained an oil refinery. If only Houston could look like this.