Friday, January 22, 2016

1 3/4 thumbs up

I haven't posted much on here lately for a couple of reasons.
There has been a quite a bit going on, and also I chopped off the end of my left thumb.
While chopping off the end of my thumb is embarrassing, in the end it will be of no major importance.
I had started working on next winter's firewood. There was this rather spindly Maple in the area where I have been working. Eventually I want the area to be an open meadow. I have purchased a bunch of wildflower mix and want to seed it with wildflowers. So I cut down this maple, When I was breaking it down for firewood, I came across a piece that had this incredible beautiful grain.
I thought it was much too pretty to run through the fireplace, so I set it aside to make into something.
The pieces aren't real big, so it would have to be something small, like a jewelry box
I was slicing a piece down into 1/4" slabs to dry, when one piece got stuck in the saw. I reached over with my left hand to free it, and got my thumb a little too close.
Zing!
O shit!
Much blood.
I grabbed a paper towel and put compression on the wound. I didn't want to look at it, but did long enough to tuck things together and get them compressed. Carol was in town taking the dog to the Vet, so I was on my own.
I scratched out a very shaky not to tell her I was on my way to the ER, got in the truck and drove into Port Angeles (about 15 miles)
I called home and left a message. It seemed to be taking forever to get me admitted, and I was in a lot of pain, but eventually I get admitted, and they gave me a couple of shots of Lidocaine to numb up my thumb. Man was that a relief.
The Doc stitched together the chunks and they loaded me up with antibiotics and sent me home.
It has been healing very well, although it will take a quite a while for it to heal up completely. It has now been 10 days, and no signs of infection or anything.
I am still in a moderate amount of pain, but it is manageable. Not being able to do much of anything s, however, driving me nuts.
I put the Westphalia in the shop because the defroster fan motor was making noised like a garbage disposal. I looked into repairing it myself, but it is a bitch of a job. I had called around to get an estimate for the repair before we moved and the quote was over a thousand dollars. You have to tear the whole dash apart, and then the motor is in a box, which is spot welded together.
When driving into Port Angeles, we noticed a place on the right hand side of the road that had a bunch of Westies out in the parking lot, so I dropped in to get an estimate. They quoted my about $750, so I left the van there and they gave me a ride home. I hope to get it back today. I had them repair a couple of other things while they were at it, but the bill should end up under a grand.
I think when I get it back, I will see about betting the Z in for some repair work. I sure miss driving that car around..
For right now, I am spending a lot of time on the couch reading, since I can't do much. Maybe I'll dig out the card table and put together a jigsaw puzzle.
That's about as much excitement as I want right now.