When the slicer attacks!

I cut the *enter explicative here* out of my finger last night. (I was going to post a picture of the nasty cut but decided to spare you the gore.)

I was making homemade chicken noodle soup and needed to slice carrots. I remembered that I still had an unused wedding gift in one of the drawers. Enter the mandoline slicer.

You lay this gadget over a bowl, and slide the bar on the right to whatever depth of cut you would like. Then you take the food that you want to slice, and use the safety cover to move it back and forth over the blade. It slices everything perfectly and is much faster than slicing with a knife. Fabulous invention, but beware! The blade is SUPER sharp. Like I said, it comes with a safety cover that you can hold the vegetable with against the blade. I didn't think I needed it. I did a few slices and called Jose in from the living room to marvel at the wonder of my kitchen gadget.

As the carrot shrunk, I didn't realize how close my finger was getting to the blade. And swipe there goes my finger right into the blade. It tried to slice it like a carrot. I lost a big hunk of skin...which is somewhere in the trash can with the rest of the blood spattered veggies. Sorry, that was gross. Ha!

I screamed and started crying like a baby. I almost fainted twice (evidently I can't stand the sight of my own blood). I had to lay down in the bathroom floor (so I wouldn't faint) with my hand up in the air and a towel wrapped around my finger. If we had been in the states, I would have gone to the ER. That's not so easy here. I examined the cut myself, and decided that there was no way it could be fixed with stitches. So I applied pressure and held my hand above my head for about an hour until it stopped bleeding and started to clot.

This morning I noticed it had bled a little during the night, but not gushing or anything. And even today, if I use my hand too much it bleeds a little. So now my right hand is out of commission. That means no washing dishes (the water here isn't so great for an open wound) or cleaning with chemicals, or doing anything that puts too much pressure on my right hand.

And yes, I typed this whole blog with my left hand. I'm such a dedicated blogger. ;)