The Forsaken Turkey Burger
Hi Kids, If you've been paying attention to the life of yours truly, you know on the fateful date of Sunday, August 11th, I had a slight kitchen mishap. Thanks to visual evidence on social media, many have learned/heard the story, but I thought I'd document it here.
SO WHAT HAPPENED?
For any variety of reasons, I haven't been following any television series too closely the past few years. After months of my Amazon Prime membership, I learned I could stream movies for free through my Blu-ray player. Simple enough. One of the shows I found I could watch was "The Walking Dead". Now, I've always loved zombies/zombie related programming so this seemed like a natural fit.
Long story short, on that Sunday, I was finishing up my binge and concluding Season 3. The plan was simple, after I was done I would fix myself some lunch before heading on a long bike ride in the sun. As the finale was winding down, I sat telling myself "Oh yeah, I love Zombie stuff!" I get why some people find zombies gross, but to me, any gore involving zombies doesn't rattle me at all as I find it comedic.
I finished up at around 1pm, and sticking to my diet, figured a turkey burger from Costco was a solid idea. I get weak when I'm hungry as I probably have low blood sugar, so I feel this is a good time to blame that for anything that follows. I drizzled a couple small drops of Grapeseed oil on my skillet and turned the stove on. Then, I started banging the outside of the frozen patty stack on the counter-top to help the patty get loose. If you feel you've read too much already, this did NOT help in the slightest.
Now, I should point out I've never had an incident like this is my 29 years on this Earth. I should also point out I can be methodical, so surely all my philosophies in completing a task are/were fool-proof. Traditionally, I would lie the stack on its side, then point a large chef's knife downward, eliminating any possibility of injury that I could conceive.
But no. No kids. Jason had been in a groove, using his trusty paring knife from his Henckels set. It is a feisty bastard, which looks like this:
I not so brilliantly placed my left hand on top of the stack of turkey burgers, standing vertically, like this:
With my right hand, I held the paring knife so that I could push against the turkey patty to set it free. What happened next is slightly a blur. After doing some investigative work, the knife must have knocked the patty free, and the momentum swung my right hand through where the patty once stood innocently, and stabbed directly into my left hand. I should also note the knife was not deep enough to get stuck, thank God.
Immediately I let out an angry type shriek/F-bomb, but figured I was is no immediate danger.
Okay continuing, I instantly reached up to grab a paper towel to cover the wound. The white and rugged towel instantly softened and turned bloody. Did you know I don't do well with blood? I can handle different variations of pain, but don't love giving blood/seeing mine dancing about the air. As I moved to the left to grab a dish towel to cover my hand, some blood sprays in the air and splashes the blinds. I saw a stream come out that reminded me of a faucet, but not super powerful. This is when I panic. Everything I just described happened in probably 5 seconds.
911 was called while I wrapped my hand again and started leaning against the counter-top. I was instructed to lay down and elevate my arm to help control the bleeding until they arrived.
It was sometime during all of this, that I think I scared myself further by wondering how long it would take the paramedics to arrive. It may sound stupid, but there was a moment where I didn't know if I would be okay. Sitting here and looking back, I feel a bit silly writing that. But I specifically remembering not knowing how bad the injury was which really thrust mortality in my face.
Listen, each day is a blessing, and I experienced nothing compared to a zillion other scenarios, but I'm just sharing that thought. It was that thought that scared me.
Soon after there was a knock at the door and I think a crew of 5-6 people came in. Clearly the more hands on deck the better.
I did have to take an ambulance, as they helped me get downstairs in my blood stained shorts. There was no sirens, which is my only regret for the cost of what the bill was. Might as well get the full experience, right?
Here is what my hand looked like 2 days after:
WHERE YOU AT NOW, J?
I've been in physical therapy for about a month. My strength is probably at 75%. My thumb is still numb so it's been a process of patience waiting to get better. I was on a strict workout regiment, only going below 3 workouts in a week maybe once all year. Yesterday was the first chest exercise I did in over 5 weeks. Overall, the only activity I did in 4 weeks was riding my bike a couple times. Pushing with the thumb is where things are shaky right now, so I think it'll be a few more weeks until I can hold the type of weight I'm used to. I've been dealing with chronic back/neck injuries since 2004, so dealing with pain is nothing new for me, but this one was definitely unique.
Overall, I can look back and laugh now. But that moment of clarity, if you will, was scary. I am thankful for my parents for coming to the hospital as well as cleaning up all the blood in the kitchen afterward. Also happy my sister/nephew stopped by while I was in the ER. And to everyone that checked on me, it really made me grateful. I was pretty depressed, not realizing the severity of one stupid accident, but the support of family/friends helped immensely.
Again, I am extremely cognizant of how silly some of this can sound compared to other stories, but that's not my focus. I'm just sharing what happened so I can look back and remember.
Yesterday I bought another stack on Turkey Burgers. Might be down, but not out.
Peace, love, and a little sarcasm, j.d.k.