Uh.. ya, don't do that....

[magicdomino]

Speaking of knife cuts... If you've just cut your hand to the point of needing stitches, it's probably not best to drive yourself to the Urgent Care with your hand bound in paper towels.

I still ask myself, "What was I thinking?"

On a similar note, it is surprisingly difficult to drive yourself to the emergency room after scratching your eye.  Especially if you wait until 10:00 at night to decide that yup, there's something wrong.

[Elfmama]

Speaking of knife cuts... If you've just cut your hand to the point of needing stitches, it's probably not best to drive yourself to the Urgent Care with your hand bound in paper towels.

I still ask myself, "What was I thinking?"

Well, *I* was thinking "I probably need stitches, and I don't want to drag DH home from work to drive me because it will take half an hour for him to secure his workspace and then get home and another 10 minutes to Urgent Care.  I can have it treated and be done with it by then. And it's nowhere near serious enough for 911."

Now? I'd probably secure a pressure bandage on it with electrician's tape. (Black vinyl tape -- it stretches and then springs back into place.) Because once I got there and the Dr. looked at it, she said no stitches were possible, since that chunk of fingertip was gone.   And she put -- guess what! --  a pressure bandage on it.  (Sans electrician's tape.)  My left index finger looked like a chicken drumstick.

[jedikaiti]

The Good Ethnic Boy discovered this morning why I always give Holly-cat her breakfast right before we leave the house. It's because I use the little tin of wet food as a bribe, to get her into my study. (We shut the cats in different rooms during the day while we're at work, for very good reasons.)

Today, he decided to help out by giving Holly her noms while I was in the shower... so when we were about to leave, there was absolutely no reason for Holly to cooperate with the shut-cat-in-study program.

Jack is clicker-trained, and used to come in when we clicked. But with the new house & acreage, and the mass of foster kittens & adult cats, he's less inclined to come running.

Until I had the idea to open a can of gooshifud on the porch. Instant manifestation!

Sorry I'm late.

Usually opening a can of kitty junk food is a great way to get both Castor & Pollux to appear.

Except when you're doing it specifically to find them, because they've picked a different hidey-hole to nap in that day, and you're worried about them. Then they will decide they like being comfy better than junk food, and anyway, the junk food will be there later.

[Dr. F.]

Speaking of knife cuts... If you've just cut your hand to the point of needing stitches, it's probably not best to drive yourself to the Urgent Care with your hand bound in paper towels.

I still ask myself, "What was I thinking?"

On a similar note, it is surprisingly difficult to drive yourself to the emergency room after scratching your eye.  Especially if you wait until 10:00 at night to decide that yup, there's something wrong.

Or, you know, when you've stepped on a particularly sharp stick that goes straight through your flip-flops and gives you a puncture wound on the bottom of your foot, and then you wait a couple hours to decide, yeah, you really need a tetanus booster tonight rather than waiting until tomorrow.  Fortunately, it was my left foot and I drive an automatic, so I was able to get there and back without actual disaster.

[greencat]

Speaking of knife cuts... If you've just cut your hand to the point of needing stitches, it's probably not best to drive yourself to the Urgent Care with your hand bound in paper towels.

I still ask myself, "What was I thinking?"

On a similar note, it is surprisingly difficult to drive yourself to the emergency room after scratching your eye.  Especially if you wait until 10:00 at night to decide that yup, there's something wrong.

Or, you know, when you've stepped on a particularly sharp stick that goes straight through your flip-flops and gives you a puncture wound on the bottom of your foot, and then you wait a couple hours to decide, yeah, you really need a tetanus booster tonight rather than waiting until tomorrow.  Fortunately, it was my left foot and I drive an automatic, so I was able to get there and back without actual disaster.

I had pain in my flank for a day or two.  I was scheduled for an 8 hour closing shift - I worked in the deli department of a grocery store.  That meant that although I was scheduled for 8 hours, I could easily end up working 9 or more if closing procedures didn't go smoothly.  I made it to about an hour before close and I told my manager that I needed to leave - the pain in my side had become intolerable.  I drove myself straight to the hospital.  I was diagnosed with a kidney infection, and only being in my 20s and otherwise good health dissuaded the doctors from admitting me.  I definitely should not have driven myself there - but my boyfriend at the time was about five hour into an eight hour drive for a weekend trip, and I wasn't doing too well with processing anything besides "I really need to get to the hospital right now, and I need to be able to get home afterward so I can't take an ambulance."

[Cherry91]

If you're straightening your hair with your straighteners, which only have one setting - EXTREMELY HOT, and you knock them off your side table, let them fall.

If you try to catch them, the softest part of your fingers will make contact with the very, very, VERY hot plate, and worse, it'll be your dominant hand because that's the one you automatically catch with. And then your straighteners will hit the floor anyway because you'll then throw them away from you as your hand registers that they're HOT!

[cwm]

If you get your thumb closed between two car doors, by all means go back to the house and don't play tag with the rest of the birthday guests. Take the ice and painkillers offered by the GOH's mother. Call your parents to let them know what happened, and take their advice over the phone. Ignore what the people who are in front of you and can see the damage are saying.

The next day, when your parents finally see your thumb, which has a rather large dent just below the cuticle and is swollen somewhat epically, continue to listen to them when they say it's not worth going to see a doctor. Even when the nail falls off.

To this day, I don't know if I actually broke the thumb or not, I never saw anyone. Dad convinced me that they'd only be able to tape it and give me painkillers, it would have only been the tip of my thumb. I think I did, though, because I can feel the weather change, and that knuckle has been able to pop funny since then. Oh well.


Oh, and another one!

When using a very sharp paring knife to try to pry open plastic covers over Christmas style lights and it slips and goes into your finger, please run to the bathroom to get it washed out and covered. When you bleed through a quartered gauze pad and bandaid in five minutes, go replace them. Don't bother calling your parents, tell your sister you're fine, and deal with it. Because it's just a small cut, half an inch wide, it can't be that bad, right?

Right, it took three weeks to heal, and by the time my parents finally caught me changing the bandaid after the first week and they could see how bad it still was, they told me I probably should have gotten stitches.

So don't be me when it comes to "minor" injuries and getting them seen by professionals.

[guihong]

When you buy a handy-dandy pill crusher/little water cup/capsule destroyer all in one and you're taking it apart and caressing this new toy, don't rub your fingers over the sharp little points  .  That's surprisingly painful.

[Nikko-chan]

If you get your thumb closed between two car doors, by all means go back to the house and don't play tag with the rest of the birthday guests. Take the ice and painkillers offered by the GOH's mother. Call your parents to let them know what happened, and take their advice over the phone. Ignore what the people who are in front of you and can see the damage are saying.

The next day, when your parents finally see your thumb, which has a rather large dent just below the cuticle and is swollen somewhat epically, continue to listen to them when they say it's not worth going to see a doctor. Even when the nail falls off.

To this day, I don't know if I actually broke the thumb or not, I never saw anyone. Dad convinced me that they'd only be able to tape it and give me painkillers, it would have only been the tip of my thumb. I think I did, though, because I can feel the weather change, and that knuckle has been able to pop funny since then. Oh well.


Oh, and another one!

When using a very sharp paring knife to try to pry open plastic covers over Christmas style lights and it slips and goes into your finger, please run to the bathroom to get it washed out and covered. When you bleed through a quartered gauze pad and bandaid in five minutes, go replace them. Don't bother calling your parents, tell your sister you're fine, and deal with it. Because it's just a small cut, half an inch wide, it can't be that bad, right?

Right, it took three weeks to heal, and by the time my parents finally caught me changing the bandaid after the first week and they could see how bad it still was, they told me I probably should have gotten stitches.

So don't be me when it comes to "minor" injuries and getting them seen by professionals.

I swear you and one of my ex boyfriends are related. he often told us of stories where he should have went to the hospital but didn't. Finally I said one day to him "Honey, if you get an injury that feels like a papercut, go to the hospital."

[Liliane]

If you are having a very small breakout of acne due to changing weather, there are several things you can do for it.

You can wash your face more diligently, you can slather yourself with store-brand acne remedies, or if you're me, you can take a very, very, very tiny dot of 10% benzoyl peroxide cream, rub it very thoroughly into the blemishes, and hope this makes up for your face being too currently sensitive to be washing it with a washcloth like you need to.

I do not advise then forgetting to wash your hands, having a small tickle in the corner of your eye, and proceeding to rub your eye with the fingers that are still coated in a very, very, very thin film of 10% benzoyl peroxide cream.

(It could have been far worse - at least it was only a very miniscule amount. I washed my hands, irrigated my eye with saline drops and it's fine. But still, that's very painful.)

[kherbert05]

Driving self to ER -

I woke up having been admitted to the cardiac unit - with no memory of how I drove myself there.

Near as we can figure I woke up having an allergy attack and chest pains. I drove from 290 and Sam Houston to Memorial City Hospital ER and walked in. I also managed to call in a sub for school - which we found out when Sis called the school to tell them I had been admitted. It was back when you had to leave a voice message. I apparently sounded as drunk as a skunk.

[VorFemme]

Speaking of knife cuts... If you've just cut your hand to the point of needing stitches, it's probably not best to drive yourself to the Urgent Care with your hand bound in paper towels.

I still ask myself, "What was I thinking?"

On a similar note, it is surprisingly difficult to drive yourself to the emergency room after scratching your eye.  Especially if you wait until 10:00 at night to decide that yup, there's something wrong.

It was a small but deep cut to one finger.  It took three (or four?) stitches - it's been long enough that the nerve that got cut has mostly recovered.  It took a few years, though, I'd actually gotten used to one finger tip being "numb" when I noticed that it was tingling and the feeling was starting to come back...slowly.

I learned that you don't use a SHARP knife to pry frozen meat patties apart...if I'd taken pictures 34 years ago (no cell phones and no digital cameras, yet) - I'd post one to the gross things folder...

[lady_disdain]

Yup - no knives and frozen anything.

A friend learned that she shouldn't hold a block of frozen hot dogs in one hand and try to pry two off with a sharp, pointy knife.

[Slartibartfast]

Bittybartfast just brought me a handful of oatmeal.

One of these days I'll remember that she can reach the *entire* kitchen table now (climbs onto the chair and up), not just the edges.  On that day I'll start cleaning up Babybartfast's breakfast dishes BEFORE I get Bittybartfast out of her crib.

[cwm]

I swear you and one of my ex boyfriends are related. he often told us of stories where he should have went to the hospital but didn't. Finally I said one day to him "Honey, if you get an injury that feels like a papercut, go to the hospital."

I go to the hospital when I absolutely need to. Like gallstones, or a ruptured ovarian cyst. You know, when they can't actively do anything for me but painkillers and scheduling me to see an actual doctor who can do something. But there's a reason I don't trust ER doctors.

When I scratched my cornea at work, I had a manager drive me to the ER and had my mom meet me there. There was no way I was driving, it hurt to keep my eyes closed in the sunlight, I wasn't going to focus on the road. The doctors there said there was nothing wrong, I went home.

The next day, I had a blinding headache still, though dad said I could drive, the doctor told me I was fine, I had to be making it up. I called my GP and he said to come right in. Put the drops in my eye, turned out the lights and turned on the black light, and his immediate response was "Well how did they miss THAT?!" followed quickly by "You didn't drive here on your own, did you?"

Um, yes, I did. Dad wouldn't bring me, said I was fine.

I was told to go straight home before the lunch rush hour hit and not to drive myself anywhere for at least another 24 hours. Keep an eye patch on, use these medicated drops (no need for a prescription, he had enough samples for me, which was nice) and don't return to work for at least 48 hours. I had to have dad drive me up to work to give them the doctor's note.