Almost literally.
Last Friday night we were cleaning out some of the scrap/left over wood from the project that we had saved thinking we might be able to do something with. It was bits and end pieces and such that still had the cabinet color on a couple sides. After marinating on ideas for a while, it became clear that that wood was just what it was, scrap/leftovers, so we tossed it the dumpster. Well, one piece decided it was not going to go quietly and managed to stick splinters in two of the fingers on my right hand. I extracted the one on my ring finger, but the one impaled into my index finger was too deep for me to get out easily. I soaked it in hot water for a while and poked at it with my X-acto knife. I got a piece out that I thought was all of it.
Yesterday afternoon my index finger started to ache and it was slightly swollen compared to the left one. Ack! It’s infected! This morning I was going to get the company nurse to do some exploratory digging to get any remaining splinter out, but she was going to be out of the plant all week, so I broke down and called my primary care doctor. They said they could squeeze me in at 10:30.
Because I was a squeeze in, it took a while to see the PCP and after looking at my finger he said, “I’m sending you down the hall to the Surgery Associates. They’ve got all the cool toys.”
I’ve never been there before, so I had to fill out 5 pages of insurance information, family history, etc an get my picture taken. Because I was a walk-in there too I was stuck in a room to wait. And wait. I was visited by the nurse to take my vitals. And wait some more. Fortunately I had brought a book to read so it didn’t seem overly long. The doctor showed up and took a look at my finger and filled out a form on their PC with what she was going to do, Remove Superficial Foreign Body In Finger. I let her know it may be superficial to her, but not so much to me.
She left and the nurse came back in to set everything up for the procedure. I asked her what time it was, I thought 11:30 as my stomach was starting to growl. She told me, “It is 12:25.” No wonder I was hungry. When the doctor returned a few minutes later I asked if I had been there long enough to qualify for a snack tray or something, she replied, “They brought in Moe’s for the office staff and after the procedure if you want, I’ll fix you a plate.” I thought she was joking, but as I was checking out she came back with a ground beef soft taco and all the fixin’s on a plate, plus a cup of sweet tea. I wonder if that will be on my bill and if it is will Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama will cover it.
I left the plant at 10:00 AM and returned at 1:00 PM, for my troubles I got a free lunch, a script for Vicodin and didn’t get billed by the PCP.
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