I am ringless. And I don't like it.
Over the weekend I had to have my engagement and wedding rings cut off.
Our new furniture was set to arrive Saturday morning, so Matt and I spent Saturday morning moving out the old stuff. The biggest challenge was the old couch. When we moved into this house, the couch had to be brought in thru the big living room window. So, this is what we tried first. It may have worked, if we would have had a third person, but I couldn't hold on to the couch and the window, so it didn't work. So Matt decided to try and get it out the front door.
And somehow he got it. It was pretty funny seeing the couch standing up on its end in our tiny little entrance way. He asked me to climb over the couch to get outside, to help pull. So I did. And this is where it got ugly. I don't remember what happened, except my hand was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He pushed the couch and smashed my finger. It wasn't even really the smashing that hurt, it was the prong of my engagement ring stabbing into my finger, and the sick feeling I felt when I realized the prong had moved. The diamond was loose and I was attempting to be careful. Then I realized how red and puffy my finger was looking. I went in and got ice.
Let me start by saying my rings were tight to begin with. My engagement ring was slightly bigger than the wedding band. They got tight during pregnancy and then slightly loosend up, but not to the point that they came off easily. I had a near ring cutting experience a few years ago when my hands swelled from the Hives from Hell, but once the meds kicked in, the swelling went down enough for me to get the rings off. I should have had them sized a long time ago. But, not wanting to be without my rings, I let it go. And now I'm paying the price for my stubborness.
I iced my finger. I soaked it in freezing cold water. I used lotion. Nada. I was swollen that the two rings wouldn't stay separated. I worried about having the rings cut off, thinking this would be an incredibly stupid trip to the ER. I worried that the engagement ring couldn't be prepared. Matt made promises that, if need be, a new ring(s) would be purchased, how at the 10 year anniversary (holy smokes, that's in June) it's not unheard of for sets to be "upgraded." No. I want MY ring. I want the ring he proposed with right after 9/11. I'm not an overly sentimental person, so of course the one thing that I am sentimental about gets damaged. Actually, I think I'm more attatched to my engagement ring than the wedding ring....
I decided to just stop messing with it, because I was actually making it worse. The new furniture came, we went to lunch. The restaurant just happened to be next to a jewelry store. As we left the restaurant, Matt asked if I wanted to stop in. I said yes, hoping and praying maybe the employees had some sort of magic up their sleeve that did not involve cutting.
The man took one look at my finger and told me that it was going to need to be cut off. I think he took pity on me, because he did try some Windex. Windex is apparently the slickest thing around when it comes to stuck rings, and he said if Windex doesn't work, nothing will. We tried. And failed. And I knew my beloved rings were doomed. He told me if I didn't do it then, chances are I'd be in the ER by night-fall. I tried to talk him into at least trying to cut just the wedding band, thinking if I got that one off the engagement right would come off on its own. They were too close together so it was all or nothing.
Of course we had Logan with us. Of course he thought the man was going to cut off my finger. The man was very nice and explained what he was going to do to Logan and showed him the nifty little cutter. Keeping Logan calm probably helped distract me, but the moment he started to turn the little handle to saw my rings, I literally felt sick. He had to pull the bands pretty far apart to finally free my finger. But he got them. Now I am left with two horribly damaged rings and a swollen finger. The good news is, everything appears to be able to be repaired, from the damanged prong to the cut bands. He told me to come back when the swelling goes down, which could be a week. Or, in the unlucky case of me and my fat fingers, two months. It's going to be a waiting game, that's for sure.
We got home and I put the small envelope with my broken rings in a safe place. I don't want to be looking at them right now, nor do I want to accidentially misplace the envelope. I cried. It's been a couple of days and I am still trying to mess with them only to discover the slightly sore bruise that is there instead. After you've worn something for 12 years, you feel a little naked when it's suddenly gone lol. I can't wear ANYTHING on that finger now to try to "replace" it, even if I wanted to.
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