Just moments after I pulverised the carrots and celery so as to disguise their presence in the pasta sauce, I became one of the 22,000 people who present every day to hospital emergency departments across the country.

It's a new kitchen. In our previous home, washing the hand blender blades required unplugging from the wall.

Not any more.

Five deep cuts in the middle finger of my right-hand nail bed, a fractured bone and a torn-off fingertip.

We won't know if the nerves will reattach or not until the cast comes off next week, but either way, it could have been much worse.

Water and electrical appliances don't mix well. I'm lucky not to have joined the 27 Australians who die each year from electrocution.

According to the Good Food Guide, mine is one of the top four kitchen injuries, with slips, strains and burns the other most common calamities.

The cuts are normally from sharp knives hidden by suds at the bottom of a soapy sink.

The power outlet is much closer to the sink in Alberici's new kitchen. ( ABC News: Emma Alberici )

Injury strikes the stressed

This happened to me one week to the day since I'd begun wrapping the crockery and vowing to take mental notes of which box I'd shoved the blankets in to.

In the 25 years since I moved to Sydney from Melbourne, I have packed, unpacked and decluttered my life 14 times.

Getting rid of those endless boxes of Christmas cards from the kids' kindergarten friends ranks high among the benefits of this peripatetic life, but the stress can, literally, kill you.

When a high number of life-changing events occur within two years, you become more prone to a range of physical illnesses, mental health problems, accidents and injuries, like lacerating your finger in a blender.

Cuts are among the four most common kitchen injuries, according to the Good Food Guide. ( ABC News: Emma Alberici )

The American Institute of Stress (yes, it's a real thing) cites the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory as a predictor of stress-induced illness and injury.

Developed in 1967 by two psychiatrists, it examined the medical records of 5,000 patients against 43 life events.

At 301 points on the stress scale, I was blessed with an 80 per cent chance of health breakdown in the next two years.

In a survey by British energy company E.ON, 60 per cent of customers ranked moving as the most stressful life event, with divorce or a break-up coming in a close second.

If you move on account of a break-up, the double-whammy can be overwhelming.

The view from triage

The nurses who attended to me at Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital were all cheery and kind despite the many horrors visiting them.

When the pain was unbearable during the initial clean-up, one of them emerged with an epidural-style anaesthetic block. It was the kind of relief we can take for granted when we live in a country with world-class health care.

A four-hour surgery on a car crash victim took precedence over me. With the anaesthesia drugs doing their work, I was more than happy bingeing Killing Eve on iview.

The triage room swelled with rugby injuries on this Saturday afternoon. It was new to see a female AFL player there too.

As day turned to night we were joined by two professional chefs, given away by their conspicuous white double-breasted shirts, houndstooth trousers and clogs.

A theatre nurse wheeling me in to the operating room remarked that one of the hospital's most experienced hand surgeons had suffered the same fate as me just days before.

"I said to him, 'but doctor, you always say people with blender injuries are so stupid!'"

Alberici's injuries required a trip to the operating theatre. ( ABC News: Emma Alberici )

When kindness kicks in

For a moment, after I posted pictures of my hospital stay on social media, I thought that was the more dunce-like move. But then food, flowers and friends started arriving at my door.

"Social" comes from the Latin word "socius" meaning "friend", while the Italian word "socio" is a more informal version that translates as "buddy".

Buddies virtual and real have rallied to provide laughs, comfort with their own killer kitchen stories and thoughtful notes and telephone calls.

Old friends have shown up at my door ensuring my partner and I won't need to cook dinners for at least a month.

They've picked my children up from school so they don't have to walk in the rain, they've made countless cups of coffee, prepared paninis for lunch in my kitchen and fed me cake and baklava.

Kindness is a gift I've been given in abundance. Like medicine, it's been healing.