Travel Blog

Among things not to do at work is to catch falling knives. But after three years here, I still have not mastered dulling that reflex not to reach out, and yesterday it cost me a trip to the clinic.

I had just sold a knife and was getting it all packaged up for the guy when it slipped out of its sheath. Naturally I grabbed at it, but caught the blade with my pinky. The cut was barely half an inch long, but it was deep enough to need a stitch or two to close it up. After telling our boss, I drove myself to the only medical facilities within 150 miles, the Skagway Clinic.

When I got there it was empty, so I went up to the check in window and the lady there told me to hold on. So I held on to the bandage around my finger until she finally looked up and asked me what I needed. I just showed her the cut and she exclaimed, “Oh, you don’t have to wait if you are bleeding!” Now she tells me.

Because it was a worker’s comp issue there were a couple of pages of forms to fill out, but she helped me out and soon enough I was waiting again, reading Sports Illustrated in the waiting room. Then I was hustled though getting my vitals. The only one I balked at was when the nurse measured my height and said I was 5’10”. I told him they may need to check for osteoporosis since that meant I was two inches shorter than I was two years ago. “You’re right, you are 6’.” Yeah, that made me feel like I was in good hands.

In Skagway, we don’t have doctors, but we do have a good Nurse Practitioner who handles the cases they don’t turf to Juneau. She had a look at the wound and decided it needed three stitches, so we had another relocate to the treatment room. Fortunately she is an accomplished quilter, so she sewed me up, gave me a tetanus shot, and I was on my way back to work.

But then I had to clean the ulu case….