All hail Gelfoam

Not long ago I chopped off the corner of my finger. My left middle finger, the top edge near my index finger, just missing the nail and chopping off like a tic-tac of the corner. Off. Severed. Holy fucking shit.

After immediately being extremely pissed at myself I began pacing and deep breathing to keep from hyperventilating. I sat down to clean it and thought I might puke, but instead I passed out. I woke up and went to the ER. I was thinking, sure, I could probably stop this bleeding and keep it bandaged until I can get to a pharmacy for good bandages. But I had a big week coming up. I wanted to have professionals attend to this to save me from stressing about my decision during the days ahead.

And boy am I glad I did.

One of the perks of renting an apartment in an affluent suburb of a large city is access to a big, clean emergency room with plenty of extra beds. In under an hour my finger situation was wrapped up. They wouldn't re-attach the piece of skin I cut off (found in a pile of chopped cheese) because it wasn't large enough to take. Instead they rinsed the wound with saline solution (felt lovely) and packed layers of Gelfoam on the cut until the blood didn't come through. This was then gauzed and taped. It felt like the appropriate, secure, white, finger helmet. I loved it.

But I hated the inconvenience. You can't imagine the number of bandage aids and Band-Aids I bought and used. I can personally 100% vouch for flexible fabric Band-Aids, and fabric bandages in general over other kinds. Every couple of weeks I would downshift in protection level. I've been sans bandage for about a week now. I'm just finally beginning to type with that finger again and there's still a good deal of tenderness if I hit it on the area directly. The total attention spent there over all these weeks... incredible.

The 6-8 week bandage iteration, fabric superhero style.

But I gotta tell ya, this wound healed beautifully. Watching my skin patch up so well was the only good part of this situation. It was miraculous - and I give lots of credit to Gelfoam, which is not at drug stores but it seems like people can buy it online in large quantities. You could probably also get it by raiding the master bathroom of your doctor friends.

Or just don't cut the tips of your fingers off.

PS - my doctor friends recommend having this at home