Spotted Touch-Me-Not

The third group of cows are the heifers.  They are smaller animals than the other groups and a bit more skittish.  Today two tried to get into the same stanchion. I was helping Antonio move them out when the first heifer gave a sudden and violent kick.  I was safely behind the backdrop but my thumb was not and she caught it against the metal.  As we continued to struggle w/ the two of them I could see my gloved hand was filling up w/ blood.  After things had settled down I surveyed the damage.  My thumb had a nasty rip up the side.  I wrapped a paper towel around it, stuffed my glove over it, and two hours later we finished the milking.  The blood had stopped but I had a bad feeling that this wasn't going to heal well on it's own.   First things first though.  I drove home and took a shower.  The wound was bleeding again as I got dressed so finally decided to go in to the Emergency Room.






I was ushered in by a nurse who cleaned up the wound. "Think I'll just need a band aid?" I queried. "Oh no, you'll need more than that." was his reply. Actually, I felt better then. Would hate to have gone to all this bother for something too minor. The doc came in and moved my thumb around and determined the gash was probably the extent of the damage. She gave me some shots in the thumb to numb it and then put in five stitches. My first stitches! Found it all quite fascinating. Plus I'll use this as a reason to take it easy for the rest of the day.