Point me in the direction of stress relief

Living inside the dust bowl of a gutted house, with painters making a big stink, my stress level finally gave way to a four-letter word – lake.

We packed up and headed for some R&R, along with my boyfriend’s son and daughter-in-law and 21-month-old grandbaby. I couldn’t wait to get to the lake house, just so I could walk on floors that weren’t covered with Sheetrock and carpet tacks.

Getting to use our friends’ lake house has been a real treat, although the tradeoff hasn’t been as advantageous for the boyfriend. He’s the official handyman, and we reap the benefits of his labor.

The challenge of the weekend quickly became apparent – what to do when the A/C is down and after a recent twister uprooted five trees, debris covering our swimming hole? I was having deja vu of a storm-ridden home, except at least this place didn’t stink from paint fumes.

We regrouped and refocused. We were on vacation, and while the guys spent most of their time fishing, I wasn’t complaining, after having a nearly 2-year-old around for constant entertainment.

Just when the sun begun to shine, the black clouds came rolling back in.

The guys pulled the boat out of the water and decided to hitch a finger to the ball of the truck along with the trailer.

Running to the sink, holding his dads’ finger, the son announced that he had just smashed it and thought stitches were in order. Stitches – at the lake – no way. I tried to bandage it up and while blood seeped through I suggested we hold it together for an hour and if it continued to bleed we would find a hospital. 

OK, so I’m no Florence Nightingale.

Four stitches later and I’m convinced that the boyfriends’ finger is pointing me into the land of no return. My broken big toe is nothing compared with his “severed” fingertip – unless you count six weeks of wearing a walking shoe to two weeks of having stitches.

I keep telling myself that we’re loaded up with stress with the passing of his uncle and the house under construction. A few feathers are going to be ruffled with his nest all in shambles. 

The stress of it all made me do it.

He kept worrying that his fingertip was numb and that when the stitches came out he wouldn’t have any feeling in this finger, on his right hand. As an electrician, a numb finger could be a safety hazard. I took his dilemma into my own hands and solved it quickly – but not painlessly.

“Do you think the skin is healing back together?” he asked, again. “Do you think the feeling will come back?”

Taking his hand ever so gently in mine, I rolled the tip of the finger under the light so that I could clearly see the stitches and the numb skin that was in question. Something inside of me snapped and I poked this “numb” fingertip as hard as I could with my fingernail.

It wasn’t numb.

No matter how much apologizing I offered, it didn’t explain my bizarre behavior. I’m blaming it on the paint fumes – although he doesn’t say much about his finger anymore.