Survivor

7| The Power of Hugs

Derek came over to me after he finished stitching up Adam and pulled me from my self-soothing thoughts. "Good job here Cassie. Think you could help me with one more thing?" He asked.

"Of course I can, are you hurt too?" I asked with concern.

"Yeah just right here..." he said as he carefully pulled up his sleeve, revealing a large gash on his forearm, "I think it needs stitches and I can't do them myself."

"Oh... I'm... I've never..." I stuttered out. I've never had to give stitches so I was freaked out by the idea. I didn't want to hurt him or make it worse.

"That's okay. I'll talk you through it. You'll be fine," he said, handing me the supplies. Thank god someone thought to grab the emergency first aid kits from the plane. That was smart thinking in an already intense situation. I don't think I would have thought to do that in all the chaos.

"Okay..." I replied, taking a deep breath to try and settle my nerves. I began by cleaning the wound as I had with the other men before him. I dumped some peroxide on the stitching needle and then on his wound, and Derek sucked in a breath through his teeth.

"Okay good. Start on one side of the skin. You're gonna want to go in about 1/4 inch from the edge on both sides. Pull the edges of the skin together, but not enough for it to pucker; the edges should barely touch," he explained. "You got it?"

I realized I was just staring at him as he was explaining. I was so nervous and I didn't want to start. "Sorry... yeah I guess I'm ready."

"You can do this. You're not going to hurt me and I'm right here if you aren't doing it right." He gave me a reassuring nod before I measured 1/4 inch away from the edge of his skin and began my stitching. Feeling the needle pop through his skin made me cringe a bit on the inside, but I tried to not let it show. Especially since I had to continue the process and would feel it several times over.

"That's good," he said, although his jaw was clenched in pain, "Keep doing that down the entire wound. Space the stitches 1/4 inch apart as well." I did as I was told, carefully measuring and taking my time until I arrived at the end. "Okay good, now tie it off with a suture knot." I knew what this looked like from my courses and completed the knot. "Breathe Cassie, you did a good job. Thank you," he soothed.

I hadn't realized how nervous I probably looked. My nerves had caught up to me and my hands were shaking as they always did. I finished wrapping the wound in gauze and a bandage to protect my handiwork.

"Okay, lets look at you now. Where are you hurt?" He asked with concern.

Come to think of it, my leg had been hurting so bad I didn't realize the pain in my arm until now. I rolled up my sleeve to check it out and realized I had a cut very similar to Derek's, although smaller. I briefly remembered pulling a shard of glass from a shattered window out of my arm, but everything was so foggy I had forgotten. I also thought the glass piece was much smaller, but I must have been mistaken now looking at the deep gushing wound.

"Oh man you have the same thing I do," he said while taking my arm in his hands. He helped me to remove my black sweatshirt so that he had better access to the wound. "This looks deep... I think you're going to need stitches too. Have you ever had them before?"

"No I haven't..." I said as another bout of shaking ripped through my body.  I wasn't sure why I couldn't stop. I mean, I knew it had to have been from the crash, and the stitching, and now needing stitches myself, but usually I had ways to calm myself down in the form of deep breathing and positive thoughts.

It's not like shaking was new for me. I had always been this way. I would be fine in situations initially, but my nerves always caught up to me, and when they did it used to take me a while to calm down again. Today, I was a total mess no matter how hard I tried not to be.