Brynne's Hard-Learned Lesson

This post is actually quite overdue. This experience happened just before we left to come to Rawlins. The girls were outside playing and Brynne came in to tell me her finger was stuck in a ball. No biggie, I thought; things like that happen, but the finger always eventually comes out. I let her fret while I finished what I was doing and then took her into the bathroom to lather her finger and the ball with soap. I pulled, but the finger didn't come out and Brynne screamed in pain. I figured I better try again right away before the finger started swelling, but this time I thought I'd kind of twist the ball back and forth slightly to ease it off more easily. All I managed to do, however, was cut her finger slightly. It turns out the edges of the whole were quite sharp. It also turns out that the holes in the ball were turned slightly, so I shouldn't have been trying it pull it straight off.

By this time I was getting a little worried and turned to the Internet for ideas. I let her rest with her hand elevated to reduce swelling, tried oil to lubricate the finger, put her finger in cold water to try and reduce swelling, tried Windex to lubricate the finger; but nothing seemed to be helping at all. I decided to ignore the problem and see if it would go away, but of course it didn't.

About twenty minutes later, I went outside and saw our downstairs renters outside playing. I asked for their advice. No one was sure what to do. I called the emergency room to see if they had any other suggestions. They said there was nothing they could recommend to me over the phone (i.e. they weren't going to suggest I take a knife and try and cut it off myself). They also gave me an idea of how much money it might cost to take her in ($400 - $800).

I should mention that the ball was not tight around her finger. Even with the swelling, there seemed to be plenty of room between the ball and her finger. I was just going to have her sleep with the ball, but I had no guarantee it wouldn't get agitated and swell more during the night.

My neighbor finally recommended having someone give Brynne a blessing, which we had her husband, Kyle, give. After the blessing, we sat in our family room for a few minutes. Then Kyle went downstairs to get some "tools". He came back up with some wire cutters. He cut all around the hole and finger so we could have a better look. The ball was really heavy-duty thick plastic, so it was not easy to cut. In the end, we decided there was enough space between the finger and ball to try and cut right up to the hole. Kyle did that, and then he pulled hard on the plastic to separate it enough for me to pull Brynne's finger out.

Her finger was cut (from me trying to twist the ball off) and red and swollen. We were SO RELIEVED to have it off, though!!! Talk about traumatic! The next morning, I had Brynne pose with the ball. The finger that got stuck was the pointer finger on her right hand (closest to the ball). If you blow up the picture, you can see it a little red and cut closer to the knuckle.

Moral of the story: Don't put your finger in small holes!