In Stitches

Jim has been very busy lately. He’s sent five goats and two pigs off to that great big buffet in the sky. (Or more accurately, the freezer. But let’s not sugar-coat it—unless we’re talking bacon.)

He was wrapping up Pig #2, tired, in a rush, and trying to beat the dark. That, my friends, is the Holy Trinity of Bad Ideas. Anyone who’s ever tried to “just finish this up quick before dark” on a farm knows full well that those are famous last words, usually right before you’re duct taping your own limbs together and calling it good enough.

I was in the barn, finishing up cleaning the chicken coop and deworming goats. The recent mild January weather had thawed the month-long litter in the coop. That’s farm speak for “everything in there had frozen into a gelatinous nightmare, but at least it was movable now.” I was just scooping out the last layer of chicken lasagna when I heard a very distinct, blood-curdling shriek.

“AHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Now, I’ve been married long enough to decipher the full encyclopedia of male grunts and yells. This wasn’t an “oops, dropped the knife.” It wasn’t a “got squirted in the face with the hose.” This was an “I may or may not still have all my fingers” kind of scream.

I paused, waited. . . no thud. No crash. No farm dog howling like a banshee. So, hey—he was still upright. Always a good sign.

Moments later, he strolled into the barn looking like a character from a low-budget slasher film. Finger wrapped in a bloody rag. Face pale. Voice calm. . . too calm. “Hey hon, can you take a look at this and tell me if I need stitches?”

Oh, I took a look, all right. He unwraped the rag, and there it was: a wide, meaty gash right to the bone with blood spurting out like he was auditioning for a low-budget remake of Kill Bill: Farm Edition. I could practically see his retirement plan through it.

“Yup,” I said, in my best no-nonsense nurse voice. “That’s gonna need stitches for sure.” (And no, I didn’t take a picture. You’re welcome. This is a family-friendly book. Mostly.)

I slammed the last goat with dewormer, lobbed a bag of pine shavings into the center of the coop for the chickens to scatter, and shouted for the grandson to help load the day’s final pork popsicle into the truck. Good thing it was winter which provided the necessary refrigeration to our meat cargo until we could get it to the butcher. And off to the ER we went—with Jim oozing blood and pig juice in the passenger seat and me pretending I didn’t smell what I smelled.

Now, here’s where the differences between men and women really shine. Me? I would’ve showered. Changed clothes. Maybe fluffed the hair and dabbed on some foundation so the ER staff wouldn’t call Adult Protective Services. But not Jim. Nope. He rolled into that ER with his shirt covered in mystery meat, boots soaked in what I can only assume was 70% pig juice, and bits of unidentifiable pork product stuck to his ear.

I’m sure the triage nurse thought he’d just wandered out of a true crime documentary.

And let’s be honest, even after he explained he’d cut himself gutting a pig, at least three nurses were still silently judging his boots. I saw the looks.

The good news? He missed the tendon. Sharp knives, gotta love 'em, make nice clean cuts, even if the owner of said knife was using it like he was late for an appointment with the Grim Reaper.

Three stitches. One tetanus shot. Prescription for antibiotics. And an official medical directive: Come back in ten days to have the stitches removed.

Ten days? For that? Do people really go back to the doctor for stitch removal?

Look, I could’ve handled this myself. I’ve stitched up sheep, for crying out loud. Not like I'm Frontier Doctor Barbie or anything. I'm more like Frontier Doctor, Here, Bite This Stick. I’ve got saline for rinsing the wound. I’ve got curved needles. I’ve even got horse tail hair for stitches if we wanna get old-school. (Before you ask, I would have sterilized it in alcohol first.) If he objected to that I guess I could have searched for the fishing line that's buried under 10 years of junk somewhere in the attic. Heck, I’ve got tetanus vaccine in the barn fridge—it’s the CDT combo, so bonus! He’d also be protected against enterotoxemia. (Goat and sheep people know what I’m talking about. Non farm people? Google it and try not to gag.)

I’ve got long-acting penicillin, LA200, Nuflor, and syringes the size of turkey basters. Sure, my needles might leave a welt big enough to qualify for statehood, but they’d get the job done. And hey, his finger wasn’t drooping, so clearly no tendon damage. That’s how I diagnose around here: “Is it hanging funny? No? Then you're good.”

But did he let me take care of it myself? Of course not. He chose the ER co-pay and the shame of public pig funk.

We got home just before midnight. And the chickens? Bless their feathered little hearts, they’d spread the pine shavings into a perfect layer across the coop floor like a bunch of interior decorators with beaks and OCD.

Such helpful girls. Probably would’ve stitched Jim up too, if I’d handed them a needle and some thread.

So in the end, Jim got his stitches, I got another story, and the chickens got credit for spreading out their own bedding. Business as usual on a farm where even the medical emergencies come with feathers and a side of bacon.

Jim’s Version: Just a Flesh Wound

So, it was a normal day. You know—pigs to butcher, goats to wrangle, blood to spill. The usual. I was wrapping up the last of the pigs—nothing dramatic, just another day at freezer camp prep. I was on autopilot, tired, cold, hungry, and trying to beat the clock before we lost daylight. That’s when it happened.

Now look, I’ve handled knives for years. I respect sharp objects. But let’s be honest—when you’ve spent the whole day up to your elbows in pig innards, your grip isn’t exactly at peak performance. That knife slipped faster than a politician at a press conference and next thing I know—WHAM. My finger exploded.

Well, maybe not exploded. But there was definitely blood. A lot of blood. Like, “should I be seeing stars?” level blood. It was coming out like a busted faucet on full pressure. I did what any rational man would do—I grabbed a rag, wrapped it tight, and shouted a manly “AHHHHHHHHHHH” into the void.

(Side note: that scream was entirely controlled and dignified. It was not a shriek. Ignore what my wife says.)

I walked into the barn, trying to act like my hand isn’t trying to separate from my body. I asked her to “take a quick look,” hoping for the ol’ “nah, you’ll be fine” response. Instead, I get the look. The one that says, “You’re not bleeding out in MY barn. Get in the truck.”

Now, here’s where I take issue. She says she could’ve stitched it. At home. With horse hair. And livestock syringes that look like medieval harpoons. She offered me a goat vaccine, for crying out l
oud. And she thinks I’m the crazy one?

Anyway, we head to the hospital. I didn’t have time to change clothes—I was kinda missing a piece of finger. And yeah, I might’ve looked like I lost a fight with a meat grinder. But in my defense, I won that fight. The pig is in the truck after all.

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