November 1, 2008 - Porch Finished, New Challenges.

.
Isn't this a lovely way to greet the morning?

I thought so too. That's why, instead of taking a day of rest on Saturday as I'd planned, I decided that if we just put in 2 good hours before the sun even made it over the trees, we could enjoy a nice breakfast on our completed back porch.

That was my second mistake.



We spaced out the boards for laying down. You can buy deck boarding which is about an inch thick. Or for the same price we could buy 2 x 6 and use that. Thicker, sturdier wood for the same price? No brainer.



Well, would you look at that! It all fits perfectly. EXCEPT for that laaaast little piece. The space is too narrow to fit a board width in there. Shoot!



As Michael and I switch off drilling holes and screwing in boards I am deciding how to approach this problem.



While I'm thinking, I take a picture of the pile of dirt beyond the patio. Remember that project? We still had a huge mound of earth over there which we were using to fill around the posts underneath us. Hmmmmmm... we will still need to level that off soon, I'm thinking....



Sorry, no pics of the last board being cut. I was slightly distracted. You see my third and mightiest mistake was being in a hurry and being too comfortable with my power tools. I'm so used to using them that my caution was overridden by my enthusiasm. BIG MISTAKE!

I was running the skill saw along the board. It's called ripping the board, when you cut it long ways to make it narrower. Ironic, don't you think? Right when I was done, I drug my fingers too close to the blade underneath, felt an odd tug and saw a chunk of flesh fly underneath my stringers where Michael had been standing on the board while I cut it.

Uh-oh. That was not normal.

I do have a picture of that piece of flesh, but in the interest of possible blog reading while meals could be taking place, I'll leave that one out.

When you are a mom, the first thing you think of, no matter what, is taking care of your child. So, as I carefully set the saw down and raise my hand to see how bad it was, I made sure not to react. It worked. Michael knew I'd been cut so he, like the sweet child he is, immediately ran to get me a band aid.

I was afraid to look, but you have to do what you have to do, so I held it up and saw that three fingers had been caught; my middle finger was just scratched, no big deal, my pinky finger had been torn down through all the flesh in about 5 discernable tears, but my ring finger, the one I seem to no longer need, was missing all the flesh down to what looked like the bone, from my finger nail up to half way to my second knuckle. Not good.

I squeezed my wrist, not knowing if there was going to be a gusher. I had Michael to think about and I had to keep my head, if not my fingers. I did not want to be passing out from lack of blood. I was also concerned that the finger itself my have been cut further than was noticable at first and the possibility that something else might fall off occured to me. So I stood there, waiting to see what was going to happen, and mentally berating myself for my utter stupidity and carelessness.

After a moment, I saw that nothing further was going to happen, but lots of blood was beginning to stream down my arm. Time to clean and wrap. Praise God, no blood got on the carpet! YAY! All of it that dropped fell on linoleum. LOL Michael was still digging for a patch when I came in, turned on the water and asked him for lots of gauze. Poor kid, he saw it then and began sobbing as he dug.

So the next couple of hours was spent calming him, telling him jokes, singing praise songs and smiling as I got us down to a clinic, where I hoped I'd get a few stitches and go home.

Not so lucky. Dr said he could not do a thing and I needed a surgeon. Now the rest of our 'day off' was spent in the emergency room. Praise God for nerve block, because the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, Michael was calming down, and it was really beginning to hurt something awful.

It was a good day, really. I learned a lot. Michael had some new experiences that taught him about life and strength. We met people to help and minister to in the ER, and everyone was quite nice. Only drawback was, they did not wrap my fingers correctly and when I had to change out the bandaging, it was stuck. The next day I missed church because I was back at the ER on pain meds and getting a nerve block so they could rip the bandage off for me.



I do want you to know though, that when we got home from the emergency room that first day, we finished the porch!!!! That's my daughter who came by to help. I'm not going through all that for nothing. LOL A couple of reasons. Tools needed to be put away from the elements. I also knew that if I didn't get right back out there, I'd earn myself a little fear of working on projects. Fear is not allowed to reign when you have to take care of yourself and your children. Caution is though! LOL

OK, so Faith learns an important lesson and Faith and Michael grow a lot from this. And we have a terrific back porch now that we use a lot. God is good. Life is good.



Have some lemonade.
:)
Faith
.