Stop Trying to Kill Yourself

                    

Yesterday was a crazy day. Work, PTA meeting, homework with the kids. My husband came home just as I was starting dinner. He kissed me and told me he was going to go upstairs to get changed and then help me with dinner. The kids followed him upstairs like little puppy dolls.

I am just standing at the stove stirring pasta when I hear this noise. Thump, Thump, Thump and what sounded like the kids throwing dishes down the stairs. Glass shattering. Then I hear this this blood curdling scream come out of my daughter. This scream of horror. I run over and my husband is halfway down the stairs and there is glass everywhere, all around him. There was blood on his side, on his legs, running down his arm, all over the stairs and smeared on the wall. It looked like a murder scene. He wouldn't move. My daughter is still screaming. I can't go to him because there were glass shards everywhere. I thought this man was going to bleed out in front of me. I was looking around to see what I could use for a tourniquet. It looked like his wrist was slit. In in my head I was thinking Please don't go into the light. I was freaking out.

I was like, "You need to go to the hospital. You lost a lot of blood." My daughter stopped and rolled her eyes and said, "It's not blood mom - it's ice cream." What the hell? Apparently my kids had ice sundaes upstairs that my husband has made with strawberry and chocolate syrup and he was bringing down the bowls when he slipped, the bowls fell and the syrup splatter everywhere. They should use chocolate and strawberry mix in horror films because it looked like real blood. He was hurting but he got up and blood was pouring out of his wrist. A trail of blood. "Honey - you slit your wrist. We need to have that looked at." He didn't slit his wrist but was really close. A half inch to the right and he would have gashed right through the veins on his wrist.

He wrapped it up and applied pressure, like no big deal. It was a huge gash. It needed stitches. But no  - he's not going to the hospital. "It's fine. I'll be good." We only had Barbie bandaids so he applied them to the area. We went out and got more appropriate dressings and antibiotic. "You need stitches - you are going to get a huge scar, you might get sepsis." He rolled his eyes at me. Whatever. If he gets gangrene it's his own fault. He is going to have a nasty scar. People are going to think it's a suicide attempt gone wrong.

It took an hour to clean the stairs. Dinner was ruined because I neglected it during this escapade. So we ordered pizza and had a "thank-goodness-dad-didn't-die" party. Then all was right with the world.