Friday, April 1, 2011

A cut above the rest

Sorry for posting the nasty picture, but trust me when I tell you that it was far far worse when it happened.  And perhaps the worse part was the way it happened.  First day on the job.  First hour on the job.  Just walk through the door and hurt myself, costing my employer more in time and insurance premiums than I could have possibly helped in the thirty minutes I was working.

So, as has been the case lately I didn't sleep last night.  I was up all night doing not much of anything.  And after greeting my man Pete who lives on the east coast when he got up, I started to get a little tired and lie down on my air mattress.  At 7.30a my room mate came in and says, "are you ready to go to work?"  Apparently, the guy who owns the company decided he needed help on short notice and I was happy to get some work going, even if I did feel like crap and could tell more crap feeling was coming.

I set about the basic task of moving the old light fixtures from inside the warehouse to the piles, which were segregated by useful or un-useful outside.  After moving a fair amount of these industrial fixtures, which were about eight feet long, I found myself staring at the aftermath of a freakish accident.  I couldn't believe it, but it actually happened.  I cut the hell out of my finger on what was apparently a razor sharp edge, intrinsic to the fixture's design.

I was carrying this thing and it shifted in my hand.  I immediately felt it slice into my pinky finger.  Aggressively.  I looked at it and saw a nickel sized piece of yellowed skin.  In total denial, I continued on with the light fixture.  I then felt the warm liquid on my hand and all pretense was lost.  I was bleeding like a stuck pig.  I asked Nick, the owner, if there was a bathroom.  He said there was a port o potty.  It was clear to me that it wasn't clear to him what was going on.  I held my finger up and his eyes got wide.

He asked if we had a first aid kit.  Nope.  Next best thing though.  Electrical tape.  Ahh, an old staple of field medicine.  No need to clean it or anything.  Just a little bit of tape to bag it up.  Nick said something about stitches, which hadn't even occurred to me.  I lifted the flap and it went all the way to the meat.  Yep, gotta check the doctor out.  He called the office and got coordinates to an urgent care center.  On our way.  So, after bleeding all over everything, we got to the place and he dropped me off.  Workman's comp insurance.  Whew!

Anyway, it's kinda dragging on here, so long story short, the doctor took a look at it after an hour or two of waiting and said, "Oh yeah.  You got yourself a good one.  I bet that hurts".  Uh, ya.  That's a winning bet doc.  Got me dialed in with a tetanus shot, which I hadn't had since the 80's and some reddish cleaning agent.  Then the stitches.  Let's be clear about this.  I'm glad he numbed me up for this, but it hurt pretty bad when he started sticking me with that needle.  Then the novacaine or lidocaine, or whatever it was took effect and we were happy.

So I'm in Fresno, without a car and no cell phone at the doctor's office and loving life.  And I missed a day of work that I had planned.  Fortunately, Nick was cool about it.  He knows a little bit about my situation and basically said, 'what else could happen to you man?'  I just laughed it off.  It could have been a lot worse.  This will heal and for the time being my jaw still functions normally.

It's kinda ironic though, that I came to Fresno to play piano and hurt my finger doing something else that would otherwise help support the piano playing until it gets cooking.  And here we are.  Just ridiculous circumstance meeting ridiculous happenstance meeting ridiculous action and consequence.  gotta love it.  And we had rehearsal tonight, where it was recorded.  Hopefully soon I'll get the copy and post it.   I also have an island jam that I need to figure out how to post. 

2 comments:

Peter Anderson said...

rub some dirt on it and take your base.

Cwatts said...

Ha! That's about what I did. that and a couple antibiotics.