Wounded

I've been steadfast in my quest to overcome my fear of blood and, consequently, have not freaked out the few times I've shed minor amounts of blood, choosing instead to ignore the wounds. Recently, I managed to jab a thick layer of skin off the top side of my right index finger while refilling a salt shaker of all things. Clearly I don't stand a chance in this world. I saw the blood and adopted the usual approach of looking at it for what I feel is a reasonable amount of time without sweating or vomiting in order to face my fear. From there, I went about my business, although I thought I noticed that the blood flow wasn't stopping, but intensifying. Dismissing it as my paranoid imagination, I did my best to think about anything and everything else until a housemate said, "Kevin, you're bleeding a lot." "You think?" I asked. "Yes, you need to put a band-aid on it." In former days, I would slap a band-aid on these situations so I wouldn't have to look at the wound, but now I had the confirmation I needed that this situation warranted a bandage. And, hell, it really was bleeding a lot.

In the next couple of days, the wound started to scab over. At the end of the day, I had to collect the laptops I distributed to my worst class, which required careful counting and recounting. As it turned out, the student I had enlisted to track the computer IDs and check them off wasn't actually doing eir job, so in the last few minutes, I was scrambling to recount and put away the computers all without letting any of them slip out the door with one of my untrustworthy students. Quickly moving my hands, I must have snagged my healing wound on something in the metallic cabinets because I reopened that area on my finger and started nearly spurting blood again. Before I had noticed what had happened, I had blood on the floor, blood on the computers, and blood on a student's shoe. Though normally a bloody situation like this would require the utmost attention, I had to make sure I could account for every computer or risk losing thousands of dollars. As much as I wanted to freak out, I had no time to waste. However, several students freaked out for me. "Mr. [Kevin], you're bleeding! There's blood on the floor!" Having a student pass me a post-it note, I haphazardly wrapped it around my finger, though it didn't quite do the trick.

Two days after that, my finger was scabbing over again. Before class began, a student showed me a minor paper cut ey had just given emself. Wanting to confront my fear and appear brave, I stared at it for an usually long time. Finally, the student asked, "So can I have a band-aid?" Ah, so that was the point of showing me the cut. As I opened the drawer to fetch the band-aid, I rammed the top of the finger against the edge, re-reopening the wound. And for the third time, it offered a heavy flow, much of it getting into the drawer, some of it nearly getting on the band-aid itself. I decided not to sweat, considering it convenient to injure myself en route to fetching bandages, only to realize that there was only one band-aid left. I had a temporary crisis of conscious: do I give the student the last one for a clearly insignificant cut or keep it for myself? I decided to let the student have it, but as I handed it over, the student said, "Ewww, you're bleeding, too." Admittedly, it was hard to miss. I slapped a tissue on to it and immediately started in on my lesson. A student commented that I was "brave." Sigh, I love freshmen. Of course they'd assume I'm a badass when it comes to blood.

It's worth noting that my blood phobia is not cured. Whenever I had to write the word "blood" growing up, my fingers would become so shaky that the word was barely legible, and it'd take several words afterwards before I recovered back to my normal style. It's funny how the word alone cripples me. It transfers over to my typing, too. I actually had to stop this post several times to step away and regain my typing ability. I really do have some kind of sickness, but I swear I'm going to get better! Just not better enough to post a graphic of someone bleeding as I initally intended. There's a distinction between making progress and being ridiculous.