well today there was no school because it was a public holiday called children's day here in korea. cindy came up with the idea to go on a picnic so we were going to head to a park around 12:30.
i was very proud of myself for getting up around 10 and headed to homeplus for some picnic supplies, like plates, forks, watermelon, and chips. i made it home by 11 and started to cut up the watermelon first. i was eating some as i went along, my breakfast for the day. i was having a bit of a tricky time cause the knife i was using wouldn't really curve much so that i could cut along the bottom of the red bit near the rind. my hands also got pretty slippery from all the watermelon juice. with only one chunk left to cut off, i slid the knife along the rind, and then i'm not sure if the watermelon slipped out of my hands or the knife slipped . . . but something did and the knife slid thru the watermelon and sliced right into my thumb of my left hand.
immediately i held my thumb with my other hand and ran it under water to wash off the blood and see how bad it was. from what i could tell it seemed pretty freaking deep and the bleeding wouldn't stop so i held my dishtowel on it and sat down on the floor. i was feeling pretty weak at that point, having only eaten a couple pieces of watermelon so far for the day. my mind sorta blanked on what to do, but then i called cindy for help. she gave me the number for "korea help" but they didn't have much info about our area and the closest hospital they gave me was kinda far. at this point, hayley came up to help and called anna for me. she told us of a hospital nearby we could get to by taxi pretty easily.
so we headed to the hospital by taxi, but it was a really bad plan for me not to eat anything more cause as soon as the doctor looked at the cut and swabbed it with alcohol and iodine (i think) it was burning like crazy and i felt like i was going to faint. it was a horrible experience and i didn't watch any of what the doctor did. she was yanking at my skin with tweezers at one point to see how deep the cut was. eek. she had me move my finger too. then i had to move to a lil surgery like room where she put in stitches, i think 4 or 5. i didn't look at it for long before they bandaged it up. i didn't watch the doctor putting the stitches in at all. i had my head between my knees the whole time breathing slowly and trying to not faint. didn't help when i got 2 shots of antibiotics in my arm and also pricked on the thumb (of my other hand). i felt a bit of the stitches but it must've been numbed cause i didn't feel much beyond the first pinch. they didn't speak much english but they understand when i said i cut myself with a knife. i feel like the nurses were laughing at me all faint and weak, not able to look. i was kinda freaking out when they took me in the lil room though. there were like 4 nurses and they just surrounded me while the doctor got my hand ready. i seriously thought i was going to hit the floor during the stitches and i was afraid to stand up at the end. when they were bandaging me up they kept saying "plastic surgery" to me, and i think they were trying to say i'd have to come back to get the stitches out.
i sat down with hayley for a bit before heading home. she said i was super white. the heat was getting to me some outside (up to 80 today), but i was mostly ok on the way home in the taxi. i even ended up going to the picnic later with hayley after finally eating some food. i was feeling a lot better after that. it was a nice relaxing day . . . once my thumb was all bandaged up. and for the third time since i've been here, i'm on pills yet again. lovely.
