Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Turkey Separation Anxiety

Yesterday Mrs A cleaned up the turkey carcass and put the left over meat in the freezer. No more turkey sandwiches. Sigh. Next weekend I will pull one of the packages out along with a quart of turkey stock and make a batch of turkey and sausage Jambalaya, so the turkey goodness is not quite over with.
When they changed the dressing on my finger last week, I got my first post-op look at the incision site. Looks pretty ugly. There must be a dozen stitches. Tomorrow I get the stitches out, but I will still be in a splint for at least another month.
My right ring finger is my enter key finger, so I have had to adjust my typing. It's not too bad. What is really frustrating is that when I rest my hand on my mouse, the splint makes contact with the right enter button on the mouse. I will be navigating away, and all the sudden the screen starts jumping around doing things I didn't want. It always takes me a minute to realize what is happening.
And of course I can't play guitar, since I use my right hand for forming the cords.
We got our Christmas present for each other yesterday. A Nikon D camera with a zoom lens. I went ahead and assembled it and started in on the instruction manual. Had to charge the battery. The camera did not come with a memory card, so I will need to get one before We can do much of anything with it. I will probably do that this weekend. The goal is to be moderately competent with it before Christmas. It has been a few years since I have had a decent camera, and the new ones have so much automatic function that it will take a while to figure out things like how to set aperture and shutter speed.
On the other hand, one of my co-workers, Melody is playing Christmas music all day. I enjoy most Christmas music as well as anyone else, but I am at the mercy of commercial DJ's. Please for the love of God, do NOT play "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer". It was not cute the first time, it was lame and it does not improve with age. And please have mercy, no "Holly Jolly Christmas"! it was a monument to mediocrity when it came out. No Mitch Miller, no Spike Jones and No damn two front teeth.
Bah Humbug

Monday, November 19, 2012

it's just for the drugs

When I went to the Hand Surgeon on Wednesday, he did a two hour surgery to reattach the tendon on the back of the last digit on my right ring finger. It will be in a splint for six to twelve weeks.
The good news is, I can't do the dishes. "Sorry dear, I'd really like to help you, but I can't get my hand wet."
Then on Friday, I went to the Dental clinic and had four teeth pulled and inserts installed.
All this just to get my hands on some drugs.
Seriously though, I hate Percocet. It makes me fuzzy headed if I take one and barely coherent if I take two. I also can't sleep if I take two. I wish there was something I could take that just made the pain go away.
Tomorrow I go in to get the dressing changed, so I will get a look at how the incision looks. The following week I get the stitches out.

Friday, November 09, 2012

Giving you the finger

The news, that is.
Went to the Hand Surgeon today. He looked at my finger and told me to come back next week.
I have an appointment next Wednesday to check it out.
The thinking is that by then, if  the tendon is going to reattach itself it should have started by then. If not, then operate and reattach it.
I bet you can guess which one I vote for.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Finger Poppin'

Little did I expect yesterday when I went to work that I would end up in the Hospital Emergency Room.
I have two desks out on the factory floor, and I alternate between the two. I have a laptop, so the idea is that I am supposed to be able to roll my file drawer and take my laptop and be ready to go in about ten minutes. It usually works fine.
But on Tuesday when I went to move, someone had stolen my docking station, keyboard, power brick and mouse.
So I had to scrounge some new equipment, and get it set up. I was underneath the desk, plugging in equipment. When I backed out, I raised up too soon and hit my head on the keyboard tray, knocking it loose and  it fell down and landed right on my ring finger, right below the end knuckle. It hurt like hell and bled pretty good.
I started feeling woozy, and started going into shock, so I put my head between my knees. At this point, people decided they needed to call in the fire department. I really wish they had just let me tough it out.
So the fire department medical unit showed up and checked me out. My blood pressure was a little low, but not alarmingly so. I told them I was fine, but they felt I needed to go to Boeing Medical, also known as the Death Clinic.
My boss walked me over. I figured I was going to get a couple of stitches and go back to work. I should have known better.
The Medical Tech was getting ready to clean and suture my finger when he took the end of my finger and pushed down on it to open up the cut to clean it. When he did, he popped the extensor tendon on the back of my finger.
AT that point they sent me to the Emergency Room at Valley General Hospital. They have this brand new fancy multi-million dollar state-of-the-art facility. I was impressed with the facility. Not so much the service. But then a cut finger wouldn't rate real high on the list of emergencies..
Several hours later I was released with a couple of stitches, a dressing and splint and a referral to an Orthopedic Surgeon.
If people had left me alone I would have superglued it, put an bandaid on it and went on my way.
So I am restricted in my work assignment to "Light typing or writing".
What the heck is "Light typing"
I have an appointment with an Orthopedic Surgeon on the 15th.
The things some people will do to get  a day away from work.