General update

I finally got the stitches out Thursday. It wasn't fun. The skin around the wound had died off and the stitches had pulled through it so that they were down inside the wound and wrapped around raw inside skin instead of a nice healed outer edge like they were supposed to. Since they pulled through, the wound had opened up some and there is a gap of raw skin. The stitches were impossible to cut with scissors from a regular suture kit because there was no slack in them - they were in so tight and down into the wound so there was no way to get the scissors under them to snip. The nurse went to go get a scalpel and returned with what she said were smaller scissors. I questioned it because they looked too curved to be scissors. But what do I know, right? So I used the tweezers to pull up as much as possible on a stitch and she used the 'scissors' to try and cut it. Yeah, what she had was a clamp, not scissors, so they locked closed on the stitch and caused quite a bit of pain and some bleeding before she got them unlocked.
So next she tried a scalpel. All she kept accomplishing with that was to cut my raw skin and make it bleed. I finally told her I couldn't take it anymore, it was hurting to bad and obviously the stitches weren't coming out this way. Sos he got the doctor, who also tried with the scalpel, but the wound was just too raw to pull on the stitches enough to get the scalpel in. So he ended up giving me 2 shots of lidocaine in my thumb to try to numb it. It didn't numb it, but it took the edge off the pain so I was able to tug the stitches up enough that the nurse was able to cut them with the scalpel. By the time we were done, I had been there for an hour and I was covered in sweat from the pain.
I swear, I don't think it helped at all to have the stitches in. My thumb right now doesn't look any better than I think it would have if I had just bandaged it up to let it heal without going to the ER. Instead of the nice smooth scar the ER doc told me I would have, I've got an open wound that still has a lot of healing to do, and I will probably have a decent sized (for a thumb anyways), possibly lumpy, scar when it's all done. It still hurts, pretty bad at times, and I still can't do much with my left hand because moving the hand wrong causes to tendons and skin to pull on my thumb. For example, I can't put my left hand flat on the coffee table to help me get up from the floor. SO I'm still feeling pretty useless. And I have no idea when I'll be able to crochet, or do anything else with my thumb for that matter, again. It's been almost exactly 2 weeks since I hurt it and I am so ready to be done with all this crap!

Okay, enough bitching. On a lighter note, my 20 week ultrasound is tomorrow morning at 11am. I'm still sad that my hubby and daughter can't go in with me, but we are very excited to find out if we are having a boy or a girl, and I am thrilled that I'll get to see the growing baby. It's been a long time since the last ultrasound! I just hope s/he cooperates with us so we can see everything!

I've also finally started reading the new Harry Potter book (thanks MamaChristy!). I'd guess I'm around 1/5 of the way through it. I promise though, no spoilers! If I decide to talk about the book at all, I will warn you in the title and again in the beginning of the post so I don't ruin anything for you!

Well, that's about it for now. Wish me luck for tomorrow! And feel free to make some predictions as to whether this baby is a boy or a girl! Actually, I think I might withhold the results until at least a couple people make a guess! Come on, humor me! You've got a 50% chance of being right! If it helps, I'll get you started: hubby thinks it's a girl, my daughter and I both think it is a boy. And my mom thinks it's a boy. Of course, we've all been wrong before! ;)