Bougie Bite

I love bougainvillea.

Those brilliant colors and graceful curving canes are beautiful to excess.

Like so many other things that gorgeous, they come with thorns. Really lethal ones. Big. Hard. Curved like raptor claws.

This is why Walter protested against getting any for so very long. But I finally did.

Today, just as I was getting the Really Big Pretty Cactus in the ground, a little bougie bit me.

When the hurricane took down the fences, the big bougie was crumpled. Several canes that I'd stuck in the dirt to root got nabbed too. I hard-pruned the parent and cut the canes down to about 1" from the ground so we could all work in peace in there, doing hurricane cleanup.

And a little 1" piece of cane, one bad thorn still attached, bit me as I brushed away leaves from its base.

It went through my latex glove and bled big, but I'd pulled my hand away fast, and didn't bother degloving and looking at it. A bougie bite's nothing unusual. It hurt surprisingly much, but since it wasn't bone pain - MRSA people shouldn't go piercing the bone sheath with foreign objects - I didn't feel hurried. I knew I was breaking for lunch soon.

When I did and had a wash and a look I realized why it hurt. This little bitty cut had a little piece of muscle protruding, pulled out by that long hard thorn. It looked just like chicken. Raw chicken.

That's where I knew that type of pain from. Deep soft tissue pain - the same thing that finger's next door neighbor had felt a few years back when a rock almost bit it off.

Blast it all.

One of those ridiculous little wounds that are just beyond my home-doctoring skill level.

grump grump grump! Off to the ER. Same one as a couple weeks ago when they superglued my big toe back onto my foot.

I got triaged and said, It's just this little puncture but it's got finger guts hanging out. That's a job for you guys, not for me. Right? --Absolutely.

The triage nurse and I cheerfully belittled The Enemy. That's an important part of many ER ceremonies. She said, --I'd tell you to wear leather gloves but it wouldn't help. Bougies'll bite through anything. Steel-toed boots too! --Yeah. I need a pair of steel-soled flipflops. It's murder when you step on one.

She reads my med history. (I keep an updated one page printout with me at all times - meds list, history, doctor list, insurance info.) She looks at me again and says, --Okay. So what's a person like you doing messing around with bougainvillea? --Um. They're too beautiful. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em? --Not me, I live without 'em just fine. --Oh. Must be me, then.

The nice registrar tells me that yesterday, Thanksgiving, was her birthday. --So what'd you get? --Not much. A jeans set. Perfume. That's all. But that's what I expected. --A hurricane thing? --Mmm-hmm.

Hurricanes make you bleed unexpected money. There goes your birthday.

I did the phone number thing. Yes, -8896 is the usual number but only -9529 works now, that's my computer line but it's my house phone too for now. So it's my hurricane phone. After they finally got the one working again, almost 2 weeks without, the other one still didn't work. They came out and did something and then the one that worked didn't and the one that didn't did. So I mentioned that. They came right back and fixed it again - the one that was working worked and the one that wasn't didn't. I think I'll give them a rest for a while.

Got your phones working yet? --We did. We finally did, um hmm. Just last week. That phone worked for 24 hours. Then they fixed my next door neighbors' and they cut mine off to do it. We called but they didn't seem to care. So who knows when.

She let me off having my photo taken. --Who wants their picture took the way we look coming in here?

I laughed. Then I remembered they let me off last time, too. And I didn't even request it either time. I'm looking for a mirror now. --Hey. Is it the hurricane hair? I ask, real quiet. She grins but doesn't answer.

A longer wait, this time. I entertained myself reading Jane Austen and taking pics.

And who should be my doc again, but Dr. Superglue himself!

He looked it over and asked what I did, and when. --Bougie bit me at a quarter to twelve. Noon.

--Hmm. Interesting, he says, turning the poor bit finger around in the light.

I'm gratified. Most everyone works better when they're interested.

I answer his questions and say: --One request. Lots of Novocain please, if it's doable? I have fibromyalgia. --You bet. (The nurse had told me they were out. But I figured she might could find some somewhere.)

--Did I do the right thing coming here? I don't want to be wasting y'all's time over something I could have put a bandaid on. That seems rude. I try to be a polite patient. --Oh, you're a very polite patient! It's nice. --Hey. You guys are the reason I'm alive. Alive and gardening, instead of stuck in bed. I never forget that.

I liked his face when he heard that. He knew I told him the truth.

--You did right, he tells me. --This one's a little unusual, you don't want to take care of this yourself. That's when we get problems with people like you, is when you don't come in, not when you do come in.

I felt all better, right there.


He told the finger, Well, pretty simple after all. I think I'll just snip off that bit of muscle and stitch her up.

No Superglue this time. I'm moving up.

The nurse returned bearing a big bottle of Novocain and a big needle and a big grin. --You FOUND it! I tell her. Or is that from your secret stash? ---SSSSHHHH!!!! she giggles.

--Okay, says the doc. --This is the hard part. Big stick coming. Don't move. Can you do that?

--Sure, you bet.

And I am perfectly still. Perfectly.

He gives me a look. Not quite poker-faced. A little gleam of surprised respect shines through.

No matter how much we know better, we still tend to confuse admission of pain with confession of weakness.

I tell him: --You should see me get a digital block.

I earned the right to say that.


He does his job. I love watching good work get done. Almost worth the cover charge right there.

--Was this in the course of...? --Yes, another hurricane cleanup booboo. Sorry.

[scold scold scold] [defend defend defend] [okay okay okay]

--Are those self-dissolving stitches? --Nope. Come back in a week and we'll pull 'em.

Whoa! REALLY moving up.

And they STILL forgot my lollipop! Second time in a row!!!