There's a reason I went into engineering and not medicine.My patient this evening nipped her finger on one of those sets of kiddie scissors - you know, the kind designed to cut nothing at all, but still seem quite able to maim and disfigure. I examined the wound and noted it was a fairly benign injury, but it did have the unfortunate little dot of blood that triggered a far more serious loss of bodily fluid via tears. I took L to the bathroom and washed off the blood and dried the finger with a clean tissue. Of course it was soon dabbled with blotches of scarlet, the sight of which set off another round of sobs. I managed to triage things as best as I could with the colorful Kleenex, having L pinch it on her fingertip while I rummaged for a band-aid. When I passed up a box of general-sized "Little Mermaid" band-aids in favor of a non-printed fingertip one, a new wave of lamenting ensued.
The fingertip band-aid was, of course, designed for significantly larger fingers, so once applied it looked more like a frilly, flesh-colored mushroom growing spookily on her finger than a balm of healing. I took some scotch tape and smoothed out the flaps and she was quickly good to go. For about five minutes anyway. That's when she noticed Daddy's skill as a trauma center first responder was a little substandard. Soon that determined little drop of blood had found its way out of the formerly-billowing, now-taped down mushroom band-aid and was making a rather nauseating splotch on the inside of the tape barrier. The patient once again began to approach a semi-hysterical state until remembering my bedside manner, I reminded her that her brother would find the sight of a mangled finger horrific. She immediately forgot all fear of death and drama and set off to chase her brother around the house with her fell digit of terror.
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