Gettin' It Right: Methodist Hospital Emergencaaaaay Room

Two weeks ago I cut the left corner of my right thumb clean off with a mandolin (not the instrument). Like a real dipshit I decided to slice a cucumber without using the hand guard. I effectively farmed a neat stack of beautifully sliced paper-thin cucumbers with some thumb on top.  Hot right?

First moral of my cautionary / endorsement tale: DON'T BE A CULINARY HOT SHOT! Use the damn hand guard when operating a mandolin. 

I went right into medical crisis mode: Since the chunk was substantial I put it in a little freezer baggy. I remembered hearing that the flesh shouldn't touch the ice directly so I threw a handful of ice into a Fairway bag, threw the baggy in and figured I was good to go. I actually felt high (and this is what others would come to tell me was shock) but I was hell bent on getting that thumb chunk reattached. I wrapped the wound in about 15 paper towels and a red dish cloth. I knew I was beyond the point of a Band Aid and no sense in alarming the general public with blood-stained kitchen linens (blood actually is more brownish than red so using a red dish towel for camouflage was a false economy). 

Next I called my very good friend Dawn (who just happens to be my next door neighbor), she loaded her two-year old in the car and off we went. The blood was already seeping through the ten layers of paper towels wrapped around my thumb so I asked her to take me to the Urgent Care right on the circle on 15th Street. As most people know from experience, or someone's nightmare story you wish would just end, city emergency rooms are shitshows. They're easily a sentence of at least five hours of pointless waiting, and I figured at the rate I was bleeding, in five hours I'd be passed out under a gurney under a wall-mounted television playing a mid-afternoon Bones marathon. I figured the doctor at the urgent care would look at it, clean it up, take out his sewing kit and be done with it. I'd be home in time for a cocktail. 

Well, I run into said urgent care office with my Fairway bag and the nurse at the front desk looks my bloodied dish towel and says "Yeah, the doctor isn't in until 2:30 and he doesn't do stitches." I didn't have a watch on but I could tell by the old lady in the waiting room gasping and yelling "But that's 35 minutes from now, he needs medical attention right away," that it was 1:55 and I would be waiting at least a half hour for a doctor who probably couldn't help me.

Second moral of my cautionary/endorsement tale: Don't go to that damn urgent care office on 15th street they are good for squat.

I jump back into Dawn's car and tell her to bring to Maimonides since I heard very good things about their emergency room and I live a little closer to that end of town anyway.  We get there, and first, their emergency room looks like something out of White Nights. And it's packed up in that piece. I wait for ten minutes to be registered, but there's no nurse to be found. I mean no one. Then I see a clock that says 7:20 pm on it. I draw my own conclusions and run screaming. 

Guess what the third moral of my cautionary/endorsement tall is? 

Back in the car I ask Dawn for one last favor; I'll suck it and up and go to Methodist. Now I had heard some pretty bad stuff about their emergency room in the past which is why I was so hesitant to go, but at this point I was totally desperate and very dizzy. 

I walk into Methodist's emergency room, which also is teaming with patients, but I walk up to the registration desk and am taken care of right away by the two nurses manning the station. 

Nurse: "Name? Address? Birthday? Social? Injury?"

JR: "I cut a piece of my thumb off on a mandolin."

NURSE: (Pause) "How hard were you playing the mandolin?"

OTHER NURSE: "Not the instrument you dumb-ass. The slicer. (She looks at me) Don't worry I did the same exact thing once."

JR: "What did you do?"

OTHER NURSE: "I cried alot." 

Funny. I wasn't feeling any pain at that moment. (Fast Forward 6 hours and my thumb is throbbing in agony) 

NURSE: "Just take a seat and triage will see you in a few minutes."

Yeah right. That really means two hours. I sit right under the wall-mounted television playing the Bones marathon I mentioned in my hypothetical and settled in. Within 10 minutes, I'm called into Triage. Really sweet people in Triage. They take my vitals and tell me to go back out and wait to be fully registered. Again, in the seat watching Bones and before David Borneaz can grab a shovel to exhume something, I'm being called up to register my insurance.  This guy is even nicer than the Triage team. He sees I am clearly having trouble removing my insurance card because of blood soaked towel. He completes the whole registration for me since I am officially a gimp and tells me to hang in there. Within twenty minutes I'm called into the doctor. 

She flies right in and says, at the top of her lungs: "What is it with these mandolins. This is my fourth mandolin injury this week (it's only Tuesday)."

I say: "These are Park Slope problems."

She laughs. I laugh. I hand her the Fairway bag.

"What's this?"

"The tip of my thumb."

She starts laughing harder. "Oh no, we don't need this. You're thumb will heal nicely on it's own. We're just going to cauterize it with an enzyme and wrap you up tight." I start laughing uncontrollably since I haven't eaten all day and I've been bleeding out my thumb for two hours. No really, it's embarrassing how much I'm laughing now.

She does exactly as she says and gives me a goodie bag full of bandages, gauze and triple antibiotic ointment and sends me on my way. I walk through the emergency room and the nurse tells me to have a great afternoon and take care. Bones is still on and I clocked in and out of Methodist's emergency room in an hour and five minutes.

Here's the endorsement of my cautionary/endorsement tale: Methodist Hospital's Emergency Room is great. Much better than I expected. I was in and out and the staff was super friendly. I'm sure some people have had some nightmare tales, but I think they got it right. I give them a stumpy thumbs up.