Cyfiawnder wrote:What have I learned from this little exerscise in stupidity? Novicane needles in the tips of your fingers hurt more than the cuts the are supposed to numb
Aint' it the truth?
As I've mentioned previously, I managed to stick the tip of my left middle finger into a table saw blade while passing my hand over it to move a piece of plywood along the table. This was while I was building an Appalachian dulcimer in a US military craft shop in Japan.
There was a thud and no pain, but my left hand was flung up against my right shoulder, and when I looked down, I saw a spray of blood running from the blade, down across the wood.
I was afraid to look at my hand for a minute or so, figuring that my guitar-playing days might be over. When I saw that the tip of my finger resembled fresh hamburger in both color and texture, I went over to the craft shop office and asked for a bandage. Another GI saw me and insisted on driving me to the hospital--about a 20-to-30-minute drive. I sat with my hand raised to keep it from dripping too much blood.
This was on a Saturday, and there was just a single corpsman on duty--and just a moment before I arrived, a woman was brought in with a broken hip. By the time the corpsman got to me, the numbness had pretty much worn off, and it was beginning to throb.
Finally, he brought me into the office, took a look at it, and got the novocaine. Inserting the needle into the hamburger wasn't much fun, but when he shot the juice to me, it felt like I imagine a glowing, red-hot ice pick would feel. It was somewhat intense. Then, however, all the pain evaporated, and I almost collapsed from relaxation. I hadn't realized how much I had tensed up while waiting. I didn't feel a thing as he cleaned it and covered it. I'm not sure whether there were any stitches involved. I don't think so, though.
When I gasped at the pain of the shot, he said, "Hurts, huh? Lots of people throw up from the pain of that shot."
Your injury sounds much worse than mine, Cyf. I've done my share of attacking my appendages with sharp objects, too, but nothing like what you described.
While I'm here, I might as well repeat the rest of the story:
It took nine months before I could even think of pressing a guitar string with that finger. For about six months, I wore a little strip of aluminum, fashioned into a bumper to protect it. There's still a lump of scar tissue on the tip of that finger, and it's a bit shorter than the rest, so when playing guitar or mandolin, the fingernail often gets kind of chewed up by the strings, and it looks like rats have been chewing at it.
The guy at the pharmacy in the Army hospital who handed me my various medications afterwards told me the following story:
Seems his father ran a cabinet shop. One of the workers cut off a finger in the bandsaw. Some time later, a fellow came by from the insurance company to find out how it had happened. The victim stood at the bandsaw and said, "I turned on the saw, and I went..." -- and cut off the next finger over.
I wonder if the insurance company decided to add an intelligence test to its reqirements.
