Show us your injuries!

Wow, these are knarly, I love it.
I'm a frequenter at the hospital due to some chronic issues, but I've only gotten stitches once; it was right after I moved out and the first time I ever paid a medical bill. Something that actually would have been avoided if I owned the taco at the time

Our driveway was at the bottom of a hill, and I couldn't get my Corolla out to get to work, my husband had a grand am at the time and he was able to get out. They sent him home early, so I decided since I was home I would make some dinner. Luckily, he had just gotten home when I decided to stab myself with a knife. I couldn't even believe I had done such a thing, but I grabbed my thumb and told him what happened, didn't look at it, just opened my hand grasping it and saw a pool of blood. So we wrapped it in a bath towel and tried to get out to the hospital. It was about a 40 minute drive, he was driving super fast and the car kept losing traction, the adrenaline was real. We got to the hospital and triage unwrapped the towel, about 5/6 soaked. I could handle blood until I saw my thumb. It was open kinda like how a lobster peels apart in the middle as you cook it. It was n a s t y. I immediately got nauseous and really hot, so they grabbed a wheel chair, and I got in and woke up a couple of seconds later in the doorway of a room. There were some staff around me that were smiling like hey, welcome back. My husband had a look of terror on his face. I guess I had a vasovagal response that pretty much presented like a seizure. It really freaked him out; I was psyched because I actually felt great. Got an x-ray and barely missed the bone. NP that sewed me up said I did as much damage as I possibly could have without needing surgery. 8 stitches later everything was good. My tendon got cut, so my thumb was bent at a 90 degree angle for about 6 months before it started becoming natural to bend and unbend it again. The "meat" kinda slumped into the bottom with some scar tissue so that's still pretty tender over 2 years later. Got some Tacobell, slid the car down the hill kinda into a parking spot and I had the best sleep of my life that night. We call it the franken-thumb. I worked in pharmacy, so the scar was always something kids liked to look at when they were coming in for pain meds or tripple antibiotic for their stitches. I'm impressed with the NP's job though; the prints almost match right back up. 10/10. I can't look when I'm getting my blood drawn anymore though, makes me instantly nauseous haha. I'm so angry I didn't get a photo of it before it was sewn up. The first photo was taken a day later when I unwrapped it for the first time.

 

Spiral fracture of my left pointer finger and pins. Damn mini bike high sided me.

 

holy fuck...I don't want to wear my wedding ring now

 

Severe ankle sprain this weekend...all I did was step off a normal street curb going to get into my car!



1/31/2014 was a motorcycle accident. The what/why is a long story, but I took a handlebar to the gut on my way down. Handlebar pushed the stomach North thru my diaphragm. Wasn't a Hiatal hernia since it made a NEW hole to go thru. It collapsed my left lung & finally stopped when it lodged up against my heart. Broke my top left 3 ribs, hairline fracture on my left pelvis, hairline on my right hip. 5 days in ICU on every type of tube input/output they have, then 2 more days in post-op. 2 weeks bed rest. 2 weeks on a walker. 2 weeks on crutches. 10 weeks total off work. Lost about 30lbs since my stomach shrunk to the size of a golf ball. Permanent zipper scar from my sternum to below my belt. Scar on the left breast from the emergency ventilator. Permanent back pain. No pics of the damage, my phone that had the good pics got lost & wasn't backed up.

 

That's insane! Had a similar story happen to my Aunt; we used to do motocross when I was a kid, we had a field we made jumps and would practice in. On our way to the field is an old grape grove in a forested area, so there's a ton of roots in the ground. My aunt rammed one of them wrong I guess, handle bars went under the ribcage and hit her Liver, she had a bit of internal bleeding and was in the hospital for a few days; nothing too major. Glad you made it through, that is a crazy amount of trauma.

 

Fingers vs 3/4hp bench grinder with an 8" 60 grit wheel. Grinding tig electrodes(I know, use the belt sander). Had my glove on, but the glove kept touching off the wheel, so I thought I'd be safer with the glove removed. 3 seconds of grinding, my fingers managed to fit in the 3/4" gap between the wheel and the guard. Took 5 hrs to stop the bleeding. Had a "spurter" there for about an hour.

Still not exactly sure why it grabbed them. Bumped that wheel a 100 times before with my finger and only got the small, white, clean skin look.

Honestly though, I feel lucky it got me where it did. Least used portion of the hand! Still got my pinch grip and can reach in my pocket without too much pain.

 

Thursday will be 1 month! I estimated 2 months when it happened. I am hoping I overestimated.
Filling back in, but still got a ways to go before I can expose it to the garage abuse without a pretty thick cover.

As the feeling is returning to the ends of the fingers, the pain is definitely back.

BTW, I was always a believer in not covering wounds all the time. I thought drying out helped the healing. Wrong. I have kept this covered almost 24/7 and I think it is healing faster. Theory is skin grows back faster when it stays softer from the moisture of the antibiotic cream.

 

WTF???

 

Oi, that looks like it hurts more now than it did when it first happened, lol. That's usually my experience with that stuff anyways. Depending on the injury, usually a mixture of keeping a wound moist with triple antibiotic and drying it out a bit works for me the best. The way it looked at first for instance, I definitely wouldn't have let that dry out for a while. But as stuff heals up, it's nice to get some scabs forming sometimes. Personal preference though, especially depending on where on the body it is for me; I have virtually no blood pressure in my legs below my knees so getting cuts on my feet and things like that I have to be pretty particular about because even the smallest stuff just takes months to heal.

When I first got this (you can see what it looked like at first further up in the thread) I kept it moist with the triple antibiotic for about 5 days, then started airing it out at night and bandaging with the antibiotic during my work day so no one had to see it. That way it was able to form a nice, stiff scab. The mushy skin stuff kinda wigs me out, haha. But once the scab fell off on its own about 3 weeks later, this was the scar underneath, no remaining open wound of any sort, and the scar has stayed looking exactly the same. I guess that's the upside to keeping it moist is you can watch the progress, but I feel like my wounds stay really tender that way. I'm glad your fingers are healing quickly though. They were looking pretty gnarly there.

 

Thanks. I would leave them open some, but they are still really sensitive. I am hoping to go NUDE next week. We'll see.

 

Knee replacement surgery , scar is 1/4" wide 17" long and 68 staples

 

Bandages finally removed healing nicely and staples are to be removed Nov 1rst

 

I have another wedding ring story. A guy I work with was Mig welding without a glove on his left hand. He was holding the metal being welded with that hand. Of course the ground was also attached to the metal.

He slipped and the wire came in contact with his wedding ring: instant red hot metal wrapped around his finger. On the bright side, it was cheap way to get a tattoo wedding ring!

 

Yikes, yeah since the last time I posted in this thread I ordered a silicone version of my wedding ring off of Amazon, had my wife put my actual ring with her jewelry in her safety deposit box lol. Only cost $6 and I got two of them, they look identical only made out of silicone. Don't have to worry about any of these horror stories I see in here anymore lol...at least as far as the rings go.

 

The silicone rings are a godsend; My husband is a machinist and his tools are made out of tungsten as well as his ring, so an accident wouldn't end well for him. He wears them pretty much exclusively now. I do a lot of different artsy kinda hobbies where I deal with grout, diamond bit grinders, etc, so I'll throw one on if I'm working on something for consecutive days.

 

Tore my pec in middle of July, doctor didn't order an MRI until late September. Surgeon needed to use an Achilles to connect again; walking the long road of recovery.

 

Spinal Fusion

 

This thread is CRAZY!
I feel fortunate.

 

Which vertebrae do you have fused?

 

3 years ago, lower back, don't remember specific numbers, sorry! Feel great now, crawl around under my truck, ride mountain bike, hike, do anything I want. 100% recovery!