Today's ... Um, Activities

MEDICALLY GRAPHIC - VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED

Today's task was a prosaic one: clean out the pig sty that my office has become to make it presentable for company later this week. Wait. That might have been an insult to the country's porcine population. In any event, the closet in question, along with a nearby twin bed have become the repository for anything that had no "home." The closet was literally filled to the underside of the shelf and was overflowing out onto the floor in the room. The results of today's efforts:

Today's Cleaning Project - The Floor Is Visible!

En route to this peaceful and buccolic outcome lay pitfalls, yea, veritable road hazzards. The shredder, normally of voracious appetite, choked fearfully to a halt. Electronic Heimlick manuvers were to no avail.

Careful examination revealed the impediment: the auto-off switch mechanically blocked the paper wad from being regurgitated during the electronic Heimlick manuver. Surgical intervention was urgently needed to extract the wad of paper so eagerly devoured but so impossible to consume.

The initially tentative efforts with the kitchen knife cum letter opener dubbed "scalpel" became more vigorous in the face of lack of effect. While firmly grasping the constipated switch mechanism with left hand and operating with the right on the errant mechanism, Newton's laws of thermodynamics were once again proven conclusively:

1. An object in motion will tend to stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force causing it to come to rest

2. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

SCORE: Knife: 1 Thumb: 0

Enter [stage right] wife: "Don't you think that you need a bandaid for that?"

Injured Male (washing hand vigorously under running cold water with lots of soap foam and rinsing with copious amounts of cold water from the tap): "No, dear, I think that this one is past bandaids."

Wife: "I'll get you some gauze to put on it. You want some antibiotic ointment, too?"

Injured Male (while repeating the foam soap washing and rinsing in cold water): "Honey, I think that this one will need a trip to the ER and a few stitches."

Wife: "Here's a paper towel to put on it." [Exits right, sits down, removes flip-flops and starts putting on shoes after first reaching for winter down parka and changing her mind]

Injured Male[holding tight pressure on injured left thumb with right hand]: "I'm not going to change my slippers."

Wife: "No, but I am, I'm driving."

At the ER, former place of employment for injured male, he is greeted with smiles of glee by one and all with thoughts that are not even concealed: "Hey, what did you do to yourself!" It's been nearly a year - and this is the welcome he gets! However, being taken immediately to a room and having one female former co-worker after another come in to chat (four in all - three in the line of duty, actually) staying longer than their duties required.

And after less than an hour's wait - at just after 11 AM on a Sunday morning - and four sutures later, he is bade farewell to return home to wrestle with the errant shredder. This time, though, with needle nose pliers, the tool that should have been chosen the first time around and which required less than 5 minutes to rectify the entire situation.

Photographic documentation of dressing and wound follow for your viewing pleasure - for those of medical or curious bent of mind:

Afternoon Dressing

The wound would likely not have oozed as much blood if I had not continued cleaning through out the afternoon. Time was limited and the job was not getting done on it's own...

Dressing Removed

They asked me at the ER what my pain score was: "1 - right after it happened maybe 2 or 3." It has ached a bit but not overly so. I will doubtless take some Tylenol prior to bedtime.

Cleaned Up

As you can see, it is a well done suturing job for which I am very grateful. I look forward to some healing (hopefully without infection as it was thoroughly cleaned both before and after arriving in the ER) in time to play clarinet this coming weekend.