And Now for a Bottle of Whine

Gotta whine a bit today. Can’t be helped.

It all started out in the foggy mists of time, a long time back, in the murky period commonly known as “last night at 11:30pm”. As I was lifting a constant-current power supply (10A) to get ready for a copper-etching session, I did experience an Incident.

The Incident did not involve the almost-unimpeded flow of electrons through my body, so please relax. I don’t believe in electrons in any event.

The power supply has a very generous supply of windings in it. It was made back in the days when throwing 30lbs (plus change) of copper into a 19″ rack-mount housing was pretty much de rigueur for a power supply. It also seems that a 17-5/16″ cord was perfectly common-sense in those days. Cord length and proximity of support for the chassis dictated that the supply would need to, comically, be rested on the sink.

With all due care taken to not exacerbate my neck injury, I carefully walked the supply up my body and positioned myself to place the supply on the counter. As I was easing the supply into place, the fact that it was largely being supported because it was hooked on the faucet escaped me. Slight movement towards me freed the supply and the heavy-gauge sheet metal mounting/cover plate saw it’s chance. There was a whoosh of displaced air as the supply whistled down and mangled the joint and tip of my left pinky finger against the counter.

Now, banging your finger with a hammer is one thing but applying that force along a line contact is quite another. What followed was a hideous crunching sound enhanced by exquisite pain and blood and a sudden cocktail of sensations: nausea, clammy skin, time-dilation, industrial-strength butt-puckering, and a tendency to sink to my knees (AKA “shock”). Very rapidly there was blood and swelling and I was unable to move my finger. Surely there were splintered bone fragments everywhere, requiring surgery if not amputation?

Leaving the wife and kids to their own fate, I put 2 gallons of gas in the truck ($20 was all I had) and drove myself to the hospital ER where they know me by sight and by name, and then patiently waded through the hospital’s first line of defence… bureaucracy, which is far superior to armor plating. Luckily the way had been smoothed by last week’s visit (another story).

Noting my untied shoe the nurse admonished me to be careful to not trip. I opined that tripping and breaking my nose would be the coup-de-grace, with the casual observer surmising that the two were somehow related. The humor was lost upon the ober-nurse, who is a second cousin to Nurse Ratched.

I was admitted for x-rays which were done by a lady who looked like Bob Newhart and spoke like Droopy.

An intern who looked all of 12 years old brought a packet of medieval implements of torture and the doctor followed soon after with a large needle and a sterile medical-grade bottle of muriatic acid. I surmised that this could lead to no good and conveyed my assessment to the doctor who merely grunted.

He skewered the finger near the joint and depressed the plunger while applying a great deal of force, and I swear this to God, he wiggled the needle. To my amazement and horror, my already twice-sized finger doubled in size again because of all the fluid, and swelled in a disturbing parody of advanced pregnancy.  During that process I exclaimed to Dr. Mengele “Holy SHIT! OW!” What was his rationale for this procedure? He didn’t want it to hurt while he was stitching my finger up.  Thanks Doc.

To wrap this up, no stitches were required and nothing in the finger was broken. It did, however get a brace and the ungrateful wretch of an extremity reminded me of it’s condition all night long by throbbing incessantly until 5:30AM when I fell asleep. Today it is twice it’s normal size and I cannot bend it. But it isn’t broken which means in a few days I may be able to type again. For a guy who uses the left CTRL key continually in CAD work, this is going to be frustrating.

Damn thing is still throbbing. Grrrrr.