Of bread and thumbs...

Before I get to the main topic of this post, I'd like to take a moment to say how utterly awesome our team was at the Relay for Life event. Everyone had such a great time that we are doing it again in October!

Alright, back to business. Today, Kayla (my 10 year old) wanted to make bread on her own. I said, "Sure" and we got down to work. Breaking open my new 25lb bag of bread flour (SQUEE) and brick of yeast (double SQUEE), I let her at it.

She was doing so well, adding the ingredients to the Kitchenaid mixer, letting it mix and knead as required. She was to the point of almost taking it out of the mixer when the phone rang and I went to answer it.

Moving to another room so I could hear the caller, I was updating my friend on how well Kayla was doing with her bread, when she comes into the room, sits on the bed and says, "The dough's ready...I hurt my hand." I look over and HOLY CRAP did she hurt it. Her right thumb is swelling and right in the middle is a large blue/black indent with white in the middle. I get off the phone and ask her what happened.

According to Kayla: she had gotten enough flour mixed into the dough so that it was ready to be turned out onto the floured surface we'd prepared earlier. She turned off the mixer and reached her hand in to feel if it was ready when the mixer turned back on and got her thumb. She said she was able to turn the mixer off fairly quickly, but I could tell she was in a lot of pain. I had her move her thumb (she could) and was debating on the seriousness of the injury when she told me she couldn't feel anything where she'd injured herself. *RED FLAG*

I called Adam and had him come home early from work so I could take her in the only working vehicle to the Kaiser Urgent Care in Wildomar. They xrayed her hand and it seems that she has fractured the metacarpal bone in her thumb. That is the long bone that connects to the wrist. They splinted it with what can only be termed a "temporary cast" and told me to call on Tuesday to get an appointment with the Kaiser Orthopedist to have them decide whether she'll need a cast or not. Until then she needs to wear the splint.

On the way home, she talked about how she is now prepared for a cast if she ever breaks a bone as an adult. She said if she ever did, now she is ready so that she wouldn't freak out like she has seen others do on television. I told her that some of those fractures made the bone come out of the skin...and I don't know about you, but I'd freak out a bit if that happened to me. To which, she re-thought about it and agreed.

So the moral of the story is beware of deadly dough hooks. Or maybe its pay more attention to your neglected Kitchenaid or it will get you. I suppose either is good. I'm still taking away its dough hook though. My Kitchenaid is grounded. Maiming people is a hard limit.