(warning: contains somewhat but not overly graphic description) Yesterday morning I was retaping my Boscoes before taking off for work and catastrophy hit. I was trying to remove the old tape and it was being quite stubborn. So I thought, I'll just cut it with my trusty new USA-made Queen pocket knife, and then I can start peeling the cloth tape off. Next thing I knew, the tip of my little finger was just about sliced clear off. Instant expletives blasted out of my mouth as I knew it was bad the *instant* it happened. To make it worse, I was home alone with just the dogs. "Direct pressure and elevate" my brain says in advanced first-aid training mode. Arms above my head, I turn to go to the kitchen. Unbeknownst to me, my work ID lanyard had looped around the brake lever and I start tipping over with my custom! More expletives! I quickly untangled myself, righted the bike (thank heavens for kick-stands), and made it into the kitchen, dripping blood as I went. Grabbing a dish towel, I glanced at my finger. "#*!!*#$#!! that's gonna need stitches."
Problem-solve, problem solve. Won't be able to drive very weIl if at all, and even using the phone is gonna be tricky. I managed to use my iphone to call Erin at work and asked her to call around to find where I should go for urgent care and could she call her dad to be my chauffeur? All worked out…got an appointment within an hour at my own close-by clinic, and Pop ferried me around. The doc looked at it and confined that I did, in fact, almost cut the tip off! Turns out he was a resident and wasn't quite as confident and assured as one might hope. Fortunately, he came back with an attending MD and an attending nurse; the resident got the job done with lots of advice. I will just say that I am a bold soldier when it comes to pain, but this one had me yelping! The initial injections hurt like the devil and then weren't completely effective for the first stitch, so the attending calmly and gently stops the procedures for more injections. Sheesh! Anyway, in the end, my poor little pinky got 6 stitches and I kept my finger tip. I'm a bit of a wooden spoon carver and maintain very sharp nice knives and axes, so to be so sloppy in my knife use is a bit embarrassing. The nurse said I need to make up a story about a bear or something. Maybe I'll say there was a grizzly at the Virtual Entmoot!!!! Last night when I took off my BBH wool cap, there were drops of blood on it from elevating my hand, so that'll make my bear story more believable, don't you think? Word to the wise: take great care when using a knife around your stuck bar tape. In fact, reconsider—scissors might be the most prudent course of action. -RCW -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
