bloody shower

If you shave your legs, you likely have experienced what I experienced this morning. Chad had never seen the aftermath before. You know, you nick your leg in one tiny place (the knee, on the shin, behind your ankle) and blood comes pouring out of your skin, mixing with the shower water, looking redder and more abundant than it really is.

Well, this morning, I nicked two doozies about 3 mm away from each other on the back of my ankle. Actually, one of the marks was so deep, I felt the razor make the nick and instantly cringed and recoiled my hand. Oh man...the river of blood pouring from my leg was one of the ugliest looking wounds I've ever had. I called for Chad's help at the end of my shower because there was no way I would be able to exit the shower without getting blood all over the floor and/or our new towels.

There was a ton of blood...it poured down my ankle down through my heel in a band of blood about an inch and a half wide. It was dark red flowing blood. Yikes! We tried applying pressure with a tissue and applying a band-aid. No luck. I bled through the bandage before I had a chance to notice that I was already dripping blood onto the bathmat and onto our tile. With Chad's help running to our medicine cabinet, we have contained the blood with a thick gauze, doubled, and secured completely with medical tape to seal the gauze to my leg.

Within a minute or so, I could see that the blood soaked through part of the gauze, but I'm not taking off the bandage until I'm sure it has completely stopped bleeding underneath.

I think it somewhat startled Chad to see the aftermath of a leg nick. I figure that it doesn't help me to have good arteries and veins feeding down through my legs as a result of running. It also didn't help that I was showering right after a run and already had the blood flowing.

Gush, gush, gush....