Silenced by a food processor

I’ve been in the U.S. for three weeks now and have my son and my mobile office in tow. We are staying until early September. Unfortunately I have not been able to write because of a “run in” I had two weeks ago with the blade on a food processor while making pesto. My mom called the emergency room to get a quick estimate on what it would cost to get 3 to 5 stitches (she’s a nurse so in these situations she calls up and speaks the lingo). Are you sitting down for the shocking total? After all was said and done, it would have cost anywhere from $1,200 to $1,500. The stitches themselves would have been around $350 – $500 but then you add in the doctor’s fees, the nurse’s fees, the “after hours” fees (though it was 6 p.m.) and the “room charge fee” and suddenly that turns into the world’s most expensive pesto. I do have emergency travel health insurance, but I wasn’t sure if “Cuisinart disaster due to user error” was covered in my policy and didn’t want to risk having to pay out of pocket myself. My mom decided to perform triage on my thumb and “butterfly-ed” it to stop the bleeding. Nonetheless, healing has been going slowly and I’ve been saving my thumb for work purposes or short tweets and Facebook status updates. I removed the last of my bandages today and while my poor thumb is certainly not healed, I think I’m almost there. I even went so far as to make pesto yesterday with the same food processor. This time I took the blade out with a fork and not with my hand. In my defense, the one I used here is a bit different than the one I have at home, and doesn’t have the same sturdy knob to pull the blade out. Lesson learned! I hope to be back blogging sooner rather than later. I have lots to talk about!