By: Hope Wells, REALTOR®
Who else needs a punch card to the local emergency room? You know the 10th visit is free cards? No one, just me?
I recently had need of an ER……again. It turns out that you cannot use your thumb as a hammer, who knew? There I was, doing a good deed for my husband and cleaning out the garage and organizing it by installing some shelves we had in storage. You know the kind that has the 4 long half-square uprights with holes where the cross rails attach with the (never quite aligned) little buttons that slip into the uprights? For me, this typically results in at least 3 catastrophic failures while installing the bottom ones, then a minimum of 1 failure while trying to get the second level on, and then there is the cussing and pinched fingers along the way until at last you have at least 3 sets of bars and ends installed and the boards placed. You know, THOSE shelves?
Fortunately for me, I had some help that day. My mother-in-friendship, was here and holding the uprights so I could put the bars (with the never quite aligned buttons) on without tooooooo much trouble. There was still trouble, it just wasn’t as bad…. Until it was worse……
I was struggling to get the very top bar to settle into place and was banging on it with the side of my hand. I was a teeny bit too close to the upright end, you know, the rusty, yucky, dirty, extremely pointy, end? Somehow, I looked away for just a second, and I managed to jam the outside of my thumb onto that corner TWICE before the pain registered. OWOOOOWWWWWWWWIIIIEEEEEE!
Needless to say, it hurt, A LOT, and I felt like Peter Griffin from family guy—SSSHHHHH, OWWWWW SSSSssss, OOWWWWW.
It hurt like hell and had a lovely puncture that barely bled, but, hey, I have had worse. So, I then proceeded to ignore it and finished organizing the garage and loading up the shelves….. Fast forward 24 hours and now it REALLY hurts and it is swollen and, icing on the cake, it looks infected at the little puncture. Time for a trip to the ER.
I live in Liberty Hill. The nearest ERs are either St. David’s in Leander or in Bertram. I went with St. David’s in Leader. It was AWESOME. I never even had to sit down in the waiting room. The nurses were really stellar and the Doctor was great. X-Rays, splint, antibiotics, and out in less than an hour from the time I got out of my car. It was wonderful. I cannot say enough good about these folks. So, if you are as clumsy as I am, I suggest that you: 1-use the rubber mallet that was literally 5 steps away, and 2-if you need them, know where your nearest ER is located.
Stay safe and use the right tool for the job! (Believe me, it is never your thumb….)
