I used to tell this story in bars, asking a group of men to each put in $5 and that if they cringed or flinched in any way before the end of my story, their $5 was mine. If they didn't react at all, I'd pay them $5. And I am proud to say that I never once paid a single person. The story goes like this:
I never would have guessed that
something as mundane as doing the dishes could result in minor surgery (but
leave it to me to find a way). I was
living in a house with two roommates during college. One of the roommates had boiled pasta a few nights before and left the pot on the stove containing a few now-dried noodle stragglers. I couldn't take looking at it any longer so I decided to just wash it and put it away.
Looking back, what I should have done was just reboil some water in the pot to loosen the noodles. But I didn't think that far ahead, so I set forth to scrubbing them out. Stuck they were, so I tried scraping them out with my fingers. Well, as I was scraping, one of the hard noodles
broke off and slid . . . wait for it . . . under the index fingernail on my right hand! (This is usually where most people cringe.) It hurt like HEEEELLLLLLLLLLLL. It ended up breaking off under the nail so
that I couldn't even get to it. I tried
soaking my finger in salt water, then peroxide, then just plain old hot water, hoping
to soften the noodle up, somehow hoping it might just slide out on its own. Alas, it
wouldn't soften or budge.
After the pain
eventually became unbearable (12 hours later when I hadn't been able to
sleep because my finger felt like the size of a light bulb), I drove myself to
the emergency room of the local hospital. The
ER staff was amazed. While I laid waiting for my physician, the entire ER staff - one or two at a time - would come in just to look at my finger. Apparently, it was amazing! Somehow, they had
all gone their entire professional careers and never once had a patient who had a
broken piece of spaghetti stuck under his fingernail. Imagine that!
The ER doctor finally showed up, shaking his head in disbelief. He thought for a second on hot to treat this wound, then said he would have to do a digital block (numb the whole finger from the knuckle down) and then scrape underneath the nail to remove the obstruction. Needles don't typically scare me, so I said go for it.
The ER doctor finally showed up, shaking his head in disbelief. He thought for a second on hot to treat this wound, then said he would have to do a digital block (numb the whole finger from the knuckle down) and then scrape underneath the nail to remove the obstruction. Needles don't typically scare me, so I said go for it.
After three shots around the
knuckle (and the obligatory warning of a sharp pain from the doctor) I laid for
fifteen minutes while the Novocaine took effect. He asked me to tap my finger on the table to see if it was numb and it certainly felt that way to me. The doctor then attempted to scrape under my fingernail with a small pair of forceps. But my finger wasn't THAT numb and I could
feel it so he immediately stopped.
He sat back, thought for a minute, then scowled.
He sat back, thought for a minute, then scowled.
He looked at me.
He looked at my
finger.
He scowled again.
Then he said to me,
"I want to do this with the least amount of pain caused to you as possible." Me: Thank you for taking me into consideration.
"We're going to have to numb your finger again." Okay, that's fine.
"And it's going to be very painful." Well, I hate to be wimpy about it but this really does hurt.
"Oh, you're not being wimpy at all. Remember, things shoved under fingernails was a form of torture during wartime." No kidding, I can see why.
"What you're not going to like is where we have to inject the Novocaine." Where?
"We have to inject it next to the injury." Meaning ... ?
"We have to inject it under the fingernail itself. And I'm not going to lie to you, it is going to hurt like hell."
OhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygod! A needle going under my fingernail!?!?! If I could feel those forceps how in the
world was a needle going to feel? After my initial panic, I did what I do every time I am faced with a situation that seems out of my control: I take a deep breath and give the task over to the universe to handle. I trust that it's just something I have to go through and I may as well just accept it.
I held onto the bar alongside the bed with my left
hand. He asked me to squeeze his hand
with the remaining fingers on my right and I braced myself. I'll tell you now, even to this day, after 16 hours of tattooing, open heart surgery and a myriad of other health-related quirks, never in the history of my life have I
ever voluntarily experienced such physical pain. I
felt so sick to my stomach that I couldn't breath. The room spun, I got tunnel vision, and I almost fainted from the pain
itself.
After the injection, he lifted
my nail and scraped the underside of it with the forceps, then flush out the
end of the finger with a syringe. He
then popped my nail back into place and plunged my finger into an iodine
mixture.
Then, I vomited.
I was drenched with sweat at this point. He then administered a tetanus shot (which I frankly didn't even feel compared to what had just happened), allowed me to rest and sent me to the pharmacy for a prescription of cephalaxin and acetamenophin.
Then, I vomited.
I was drenched with sweat at this point. He then administered a tetanus shot (which I frankly didn't even feel compared to what had just happened), allowed me to rest and sent me to the pharmacy for a prescription of cephalaxin and acetamenophin.
It was by far the most pain I had ever experienced. The next day, I advertised for a new roommate.
That'll be $5, please.
That'll be $5, please.
Well, found your post while doing a Google search for the same issue, exact same setting and incident. About to go to the UC for it... glad to know that'll be enjoyable. Lol.
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