School
I had my nose broken at school, and the bottom bit of skin had always been slightly to one side by about 1/4 of an inch. No one noticed, except me. So after a heavy night of drunkeness and buckets at Uni, i decided to sort the problem.

Borrowed a lockable clamp from a medical student friend , pull, scream, blood......lots of blood. Pass out, wake up the next morning, clamp still attached and blood covered bed, but a lovely straight nose.

Smiles all round.
(Strump striving for imperfection since, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 19:09, Reply)

the ol' brush off
Dan was a bloke i met at college. he was one of a group of 8 of us who would have lunch together every day, before heading off to the pub. Dan was very fond of cheese, crusty bread, potatoes....in short, any foods pretty much guaranteed to give him chronic constipation.
as a result of straining to remove his constant bum-blockages, Dan ended up with a very painful crop of piles. he didn't want to tell us at first(i don't blame him), but it soon became apparent that there was a problem with his poop-chute.
we all tried to convince him to go to the doctor, but Dan was far too ashamed of his anal neighbours to go, so he just put up with them. before long, though, the pain just became too much to bear and Dan realised something had to be done.
now, Dan had an older sister with a young child, whom she was trying to wean off his bottle. this meant there was plenty of baby-type gubbins being thrown away, including a bottle brush. being the type that comes up with absolutely stunning plans whilst stoned, Dan decided the bottle brush would be just the job for evicting his rectal tenants. as he told us much later, he drank the best part of a bottle of jack daniels, before girding his loins and shoving the bottle brush where the sun don't shine, hoping to pop his piles and have them shrink down to raisins.
obviously, this didn't work. if Dan thought he had trouble sitting comfortably before his botched bumjob, he was wrong. he was now in such agony that within 2 days, his pain had won over his embarrassment and he took his now infected piles to the hospital for treatment.
after 3 days in hospital and unspecified treatment, Dan was allowed home, sore but wiser.
i went to visit him in the hospital, as did several of our other friends. Dan wasn't as amused by my gift as i was, unfortunately.
it was a bunch of grapes ;)
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 18:49, 1 reply)

When I was little,
about 9 or 10, we went to visit the new house we'd just bought and were about to move into. The house had fallen into a state of disrepair, seeing as the previous owner was a very sweet old widow who didn't do much in the way of keeping the house looking not derelict. After a bit, I was dicking about on the front driveway, when my mother called to me that we were about to head back.

What I failed to realise was that overhanging the driveway was a large tree, which was practically dead and therefore had dropped nice curvy branches all over the driveway entrance. I foolishly stepped on one end of one of these branches, causing the other end to go upwards and for me to trip over said branch, pile-driving hands first into some very sharp and rather questionable looking gravel.

My mother, laughingly ignoring my pleas to take me to the hospital to get butterfly stitches, despite a similar incident a few years previously and a similarly shocking amount of blood, applied Savlon magic spray and a small patch of gauze, adhered with some tape.

The result? A rather ominous looking black bit in the palm of my hand. We have no idea what it is, but we're guessing muscle. And, miraculously, no infection!
(aedowin, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 18:22, Reply)

Warts: Sudocrem = Miracle cream
Not so much DIY surgery, more a tip for wart removal. I had a rather unsightly wart on my neck, with which I couldn't stop fiddling. Went to the GP who prescribed me the gel that you supposed to use for warts on your hands and feet. Mostly succeeded in making the wart bleed and burning my neck with the gel. Then a work colleague told me to try sudocrem, the stuff they use for nappy rash, and it worked like a dream! within a week the thing had virtually disappeared. Placebo? maybe, but I'm thinking not.

So next time you get a wart try sudocrem rather first rather than burning it off with a cigarette or hacking it off with toenail-clippers, it's a lot less gorey
(Nitrous Nitrous, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 18:13, 1 reply)

Glass in foot
There is a photo somewhere of my 'mates' digging a piece of glass out of my foot. (edit - found it)

In our 2nd year uni days, we (me, johnny LAAAAMBERT, Drew, Whitty, and our very own humptydumptywaspushed) shared a house. Drew, to cut a long story short, was a twat, and when he broke a glass in the living room didn't clear it up. I found it with my bare feet.

So, in the below pic, I'm in agony (and in the 1990's SWFC shirt), Whitty is digging out the glass, John is taking the piss, and humpty is taking the pic....


( ogwen69 has returned from Reddit, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 17:34, 6 replies)

I got fed up with a mole on my neck...
... cut it off with a pair of scissors. Bled like buggery for hours, but never came back. I have now got a black hair in it's place which grows back REALLY thick and strong.


Apologies for lack of lulz...
( ogwen69 has returned from Reddit, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 17:25, 1 reply)

DIY Vetinary surgery
So, the young pistonbroke got his first air rifle - great for shooting all my brothers toys, the sparrows off the washing line, basically pretty much anything - I even used to dry fire it at our wimpy "gun dog" - a black labrador so pathetic that it used to run away from the sound of gunfire rather than look for something to fetch.

So, one day, at home alone, I deceided to go out shooting and pulled the rifle out from under my bed - grabbed a tin of ammo, and popped an empty round at the dog who as usual whelped and ran away.
When I got back (final score 1 pigeon and 2 sparrows) the dog came over to make sure I still loved him, I gave him a bit of a stroke and then noticed my hand was covered in sticky blood.

on the dogs snout, a little under his eye was the unmistakable round tail end of a pellet, embedded deep into the poor creature - it seems either I'd left a round in the gun, or my brother had been messing with it (I suspect the latter).

Well, with my parents due home, drastic action was called for - the removal should have been simple, but the pellet had mushroomed in contact with the snouty bones of the dog, so I had to open the wound up with a small paring knife to remove the pellet - this left a nasty crater of raw red flesh on the poor creatures muzzle - pretty "bloody" obvious -now I'd already tasted the parents wrath when I'd "borrowed" my dads best shotgun, so I knew that a probable early death awaited me if I was rumbled - so my racing brain settled on painting the wound black with modelling paint to disguise it.

The wound was of course noticed in due course, but by then had become a scabby mess, and was put down the the dog tangling with a cat it should have left alone - basically, I got away with it
The dog healed up ok too, no infection or anything, but it did forever have a bald patch on its face a which gave me guilt for as long as it lived.
(pistonbroke, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 16:33, 6 replies)

I cut myself shaving
but a small piece of bog roll and I was fine.

Right - now I'm off to do some massive drugs and supermodels.

Etc.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 16:25, 5 replies)

Warts
Seeing as the tone for this QOTW seems to revolve around warts, here is my contribution.

(Wavy lines etc)

My dad, back in the day, had a horrific wart on his knuckle which wouldn't budge. Freezing, burning, wartner, he had tried it all.
Bearing in mind this is someone who super-glues his teeth back in when they fall out, you can imaginee the sort of DIY methods he tried to get rid of the blighter.

Anyway, after several methods, he accepted that he would not be rid of the thing and just carried on with life as normal.

This saw us visiting the zoo one day and seeing all sorts of exotic creatures as you would expect at a zoo (especially some of the visitors!) but it was the ostrich enclosure that was the most memorable.

Ostriches (ostrichi, maybe?) as I'm sure you know are known as being a bunch of bastards in the animal kingdom. Everyone can recall TV reporters being snapped at by these feathered, flightless yobs, and it was on this zoo visit that one took a liking to my dad (and to his wart in particular) and decided to nip at it, taking a chunk out of my dad's knuckle *warts and all*.

So yes, if you're struggling to get rid of a wart, take a visit to the ostrich enclosure for guaranteed results.

*Awaits potential law-suit from Wartner, Bazuka et al*
(WillyNilly SillyBilly, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 15:27, Reply)

DIY Autopsy
Pearoast for you lot:

In his youth..
.. my uncle was left to look after my grandparent's house whilst they went away for a week.

They were slightly apprehensive about leaving him in charge due to the fact that last time he was, the television started smoking for some reason and ended up being lauched out into the garden. Through the window. It rained that night and poor little TV was ruined.

On this occassion it was poor little pet cat that was ruined.

Obviously a painful moment in any family when a pet dies but my granny is a cat fanatic so everyone knew just how upset she would be.

Thinking it would be a good idea, my uncle decided to find out exactly how the cat had died (probably to save him from getting the blame) so the shed turned into an operating table.

He then proceeded to cut open my granny's beloved pet to discover that it had eaten a rat that had eaten rat poison which my grandad had put down). Result! He wasn't to blame.
(WillyNilly SillyBilly, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 13:14, 1 reply)

This actually makes me wretch just thinking about it...
My dad had a blood build up under his thumb nail, the pressure was causing him all sorts of pain and so he decided he should do something about it.

He got a paperclip and tried to slam it through his nail but to no effect. The next day I walked into our garden shed after hearing a massive "oooooh ya bastard" come from inside, there was my dad perched with a lot of blood on his hand.

My dad had put his thumb into the vice and got one of them precision drills (you know the one, you lower a lever and it the drill goes straight down) and used his blowtorch to "sterilise" the drill bit. He'd sat there and lowered it very very slowly and drilled through his thumbnail with perfect precision, any further and he'd have fucked his thumb up completely.

It worked, the pressure was relieved and he was in barely any pain compared to before. It's the same sort of thing they'd have done in the hospital only with more expert equipment and... less risk.

Uh!
(nobface part time paperboy full time gangsta, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 13:01, 5 replies)

Warts...
I work with live marine fish, and as a result of stressed and sometimes sick fish when they first arrive(plenty of zoonoses such as fish TB), salt water, chemicals, various kinds of dead insect frozen foods, venomous fish, urchins, corals (many of which carry more nasties in their protective slime than you'd find on a public toilet seat at the end of a saturday eve) anemones and so on and so on, it's pretty needless to say we end up with some really quite bizarre skin complaints. We have one guy who's skin falls off. Literally, drops off his hands. We've had several of those. He's now on steriods for it. Thankfully, my worst skin complaint not involving venom was that I grew a wart.
Now, I've never had a wart in my entire life and it freaked me the fuck out. It was on the base of my thumb, on that fleshy chunk just above your wrist. People kept telling me to leave it alone, or put Wartner on it. Well, Wartner was 8 quid a tube. Animal workers don't get paid great salaries. So I did what any good skint person would do and BURNT the fucker off with concentrated Hydrochloric acid. The acid we dilute with 60% water, 30% acid to clean really stubborn calcium stained tanks and sterilise with. I put some on a cotton bud every day for about a week and dabbed it onto the wart, let the tears of immense stinging pain flow for a little, then washed it off. Was going with the theory of 'oooh, you don't want to remove it, it'll come back with friends! It's a virus!' well I'd like to see a virus survive concentrated HCL!

Well it fucking worked. I have been wart free for about 18 months. Take that Wartner!
( Bathory, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 12:44, 1 reply)

It rubs the lotion into its skin
Well, not lotion exactly...

When you get into your 40s tattoo-free, maybe that should be taken as a sign not to really bother with getting one.

When you're trying to rebuild a damaged relationship, maybe getting that person's name inked on your body is a poor idea.

So that when six months later everything has gone tits-up, you don't find yourself applying trichloroacetic acid to your skin in order to get rid of said tattoo.

Having said that, after 3 treatments, the TCA is working in that the tattoo is disappearing. Another 3 applications and I think it will be gone.

Pain: not as much as you'd think; and remember, laser removal both hurts and scars and costs. So far once the skin has healed, there has been no scarring...
(TheImmortalJenkins, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 12:10, 5 replies)

Nose ring Nonsense
Not exactly surgery, but back in the days before the legendary Kurt Cobain had decided to part company with his brains, a young and very impressionable NotDavidBailey was heavily into what passed for the grunge / greebo scene in our obscure little corner of England.

Hence yours truly walking around at the time in scruffy, baggy combat trousers, chequered shirts worn like cardigans, big army boots - basically I looked a complete prat but that's a different story...

Anyway, one other vital accessory to complete the 'look' was a nose ring and so, having saved up the money and plucked up the courage, off I went to the local tattooists / piercing parlour, clutching the cheap and nasty little silver sleeper that for some reason I wished to have dangling out of one of my nostrils.

Of course, it doesn't work like that though. The tattooist was a professional, and he quite rightly insisted on using a piercing gun and sterile stud. The deed was done, and I was left with a large, hideous, faux-gold stud in my nose and a piece of paper containing several important after care instructions. For example: "Don't take it out for at least two to three weeks" or words to similar effect.

"Sod that!" thought I and upon returning home, immediately removed the gold stud. That hurt quite a bit in itself, but was nothing compared to what I was about to experience next.

Remembering the scene from 'First Blood' where Rambo stitches his own arm back together, I thought it would be wise, like Rambo, to sterilise the bit of metal that I intended to plunge into my damaged flesh by using fire. Cue a cigarette lighter, followed by my screams as the sleeper heated up very quickly and promptly burned the ends of two of my fingers and thumb...

Which, not being ambidextrous, left me with the very tricky job of getting the sleeper through the very tender hole in my nose, which was already showing the very first signs of beginning to scab up and close, with my now very, very sore fingers.

My eyes have never watered so much in my life. It was like taking finely chopped onion and rubbing it into your eyes. There wasn't much blood, but the pain was pretty bad.

Not as bad, however, as the pain from the lovely big abscess which formed a few days later right next to my 'semi-DIY' piercing, forcing me to have the ring removed by a nurse in A+E with the aid of a local anaesthetic, followed by a nice course of antibiotics.

I think the gold stud would probably have looked better than the abscess.
( NotDavidBailey isn't all that sure that he is?, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 11:53, Reply)

There was this
MOD EDIT: I've told you before to stop posting pictures of your genitals on B3ta, if you do it again we will delete your user account.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 10:55, 5 replies)

I have tried repeatedly to remove a large hairy wart from my belly.
The problem is that the wart thinks it's a game and keeps coming back every time I sit down with my laptop.

Stupid cat.
( Wanderer, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 8:35, Reply)

Have you ever popped a cold sore?
I have - and believe me it's a fascinating process, especially if you're doing it with the point of a protractor. I had to endure a discouraging amount of blood first off, not to mention a metric arseload of stinging pain, before I managed to isolate the blob of pus floating within the bloody cavity on my face like a small toxic egg yolk. Spearing that took some work, but I was finally rewarded with a satisfying eruption of yellowish disease. Best of all I managed to avoid a well-deserved spread of infection to the rest of my face.
(mudskipper, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 7:35, Reply)

Another warty tale..
I had a wart appear on my index finger on the right hand. I cut it off, it grew back.
I picked it off..it grew back.
I burned it off it grew back.
I cut it off again, it never came back.
Nice little scar there though.

I have a skin tag on my side...I'm tempted to nip it off with nail clippers.
(Asharin Stabby stab stab, Sun 23 Jan 2011, 2:47, 5 replies)

one of those 'frend of a friend' stories, but I am assured it is true
Working on a film set that's supposed to be an Accident & Emergency section of a hospital. Lots of props kicking around, and a professional medic on hand to give advice about procedure to make it all look pukka.

The scene involves one of those cardiac shock things to restart a heart, and there's a prop one ready to use. In the run up to the scene rehearsal, the 1st Assistant director has a play with the prop, in a kind of a 'look at me' moment he pretends to shock himself with it. Turns out the prop is real and charged up, cos it blasts him and stops his heart, The guy is dead. Luckily the medic is right there to shock him again to restart his heart, and attend to him til they can get him to hospital.
( mictoboy shitting in your cunt since, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 22:31, 8 replies)

I Have done the following
1. Reset my broken nose by inserting a needle nose pliers up my nose and pulling apart the handles to "pop" it back in place.
2. Splitting my head open which I later found out would need 25 staples and deciding that it would be easier to Superglue it back together.
3. I have relocated 2 fingers, 1 Ankle and 1 Elbow.

Wounds heal, breaks mend, but always remember, Chicks dig scars!
(Adaminho, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 21:43, 4 replies)

Big fat fucking tic
I hate starting stories with 'When I was in Jamaica...'

When I lived in the Caribbean...

I was taking a shower after working in the feilds. I felt a funny lump while washing my leg and, when I checked, found that sticking out of my calf muscle was a big fat fucking tic. Actually it was the back end of a big fat fucking tic as it was buried so deeply into my skin.

I couldn't quite remember if I was supposed to burn it or smear it with vaseline.
I was starting to freak out a little bit and as I didnt have any vaseline, I burned its bum till it started to smell, then prized it out with a pair of tweezers.

It left a neat tic sized whole in my leg.

Job done.
(EvilMeister, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 19:43, 6 replies)

Melanoma misery.....
When I was 22 I discovered I had aquired a large malignant lump. Fairly unusual for a man at such a young age.

Being a man, and and just putting up with these things without seeking help as we do, I soldiered on for some 10 years, each year watching it grow in size, feeding off me and growing ever more nasty.

Anyway, one day I plucked up the courage and managed to excise it myself.

I still see her at the weekends though, when she drops the kids off.
(Mong The Merciless Older not wiser, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 18:44, 2 replies)

that's the last time i stay at her house
if, at the age of 12, you stay at your mate's house and empty her parents' booze cabinet, don't decide in a drunken haze to sword fight with 2 stale baguettes. your mate will get crumbs in her eyes and fall over backwards, breaking her middle finger. trying to set it with a lolly ice stick and a shoelace won't work and her mum will be VERY pissed off when she finds out.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 18:34, Reply)

Sticks and stones may break my bones
But I'll cure them with some top quality bodge jobs afterwards.

Here are a few of mine from years gone by. None are big enough to warrant a whole post, so have a collecton. Injuries were generally suffered by myself, but some were by mates.


#1 Broken ulna and radius

Cause: Dudley Death Drop. Me and friends wrestling on the school field, aged 11. I lost.

Remedy: Lie on the floor, screaming. Cover arm with school blazer.

Result: Surprisingly, didn’t work. Weekend in hospital after a four hour operation. Metal plates in my arm for 2 months, which I now have sat in a little pot (screws and all) on the side in my bedroom.


#2 Suspected broken foot and hand

Cause: Argument with taxi driver whilst absolutely munted. Taxi driver subsequently tried to run me over, only got my foot. Probably deserved it too. Followed this up by punching like a twat at the taxi, hitting a lovely panel of metal.

Remedy: Sit in bed for the rest of the weekend, drinking and watching some top quality films including Dude, Where’s My Car? and Withnail & I

Result: Limp for two weeks, having to wear trainers with a suit to work. My little finger on my left hand now sits at a slightly funny angle, and you can feel a weird bone thing on the side of my hand.


#3 Glass jammed in friend’s foot on holiday

Cause: Urm, walking on some glass.

Remedy: Steal girl next door’s eyebrow tweezers, pick out chunk of glass and wash out wound with vodka. Replace tweezers hoping the girl doesn’t notice.

Result: I moan about wasted vodka. Girl finds out about us using tweezers as makeshift operation equipment, and doesn’t take too kindly. Foot heals 100%. Success.


#4 Took all the skin off my left leg

Cause: Slide tackle on fucking rock solid football pitch, sans shin pad.

Remedy: Half a bottle of 40 year old TCP from the works first aid box, the next day

Result: Stunk out office with TCP, hair on that part of my leg no longer grows the same. Bit patchy.


#4 What can only be described as a colony of verrucas on my heel.

Cause: The top quality clientele of my local swimming pool.

Remedy: Bazuka didn’t work, so holding a fuck off chunk of ice on my heel, followed by taking them off with a pen knife.

Result: Missed one, which, without the support of it’s’ comrades, was soon a victim of the remaining bazuka in the tube.


#5 Broken index / middle finger

Cause: Mate playing in goal in five a side (first game of the tournament), gets hit on the end of his fingers, breaking two.

Remedy: Let him use goalie gloves for the rest of the tournament (which we won, and got a trophy so small that the bloke who designed the ashes would have shat a kidney in awe at). Follow this up with a few cans and then a realisation that he might have to go hospital.

Result: As noted above, VICTORY! Then advice from a doctor (the so called experts) that he was stupid to carry on playing, and should’ve gone straight to hospital. Squares. They clearly don’t understand that winning a charity 5 a side is more important than one mans safety.

And that’s all I can think of. I will offer free medical advice on any ailments you have between now and the end of this weeks QOTW.

Yours,

Dr P C Sniffer.
( the pink chicken sniffer sniffs pink chickens., Sat 22 Jan 2011, 18:17, 6 replies)

I got pancreatic cancer, then I hacked apart a useless fat lump, now I'm going for promotion.
/Brian Lenihan.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 18:10, 1 reply)

Not exactly surgery, but . . . .
I gave myself a branding on my right upper arm.
It is a circle with lines radiating out, like the sun . . .ish.

It is not as obvious as I would have liked, but quite visible.
Because my arm was bent when I did the branding, some of the lines are longer than others, but I like it.

The initial pain was minimal, the nerve endings get cooked.
As they grow back they hurt like a bitch.

I would like to get it made more obvious, but have yet to find a proper branding person.

Tattoos are SO last century, Dahling.
(BigAndyBee, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 17:34, 2 replies)

Before I can remember properly
(no, not last week) so perhaps 4 or 5, I decided that my ears stuck out too much. So I gets a pair of scissors and try and cut my right-hand one off. Although I failed to do the fall van Gough, there is a scar right up my earlobe to this day.
(Littlesirjohn sprung up his head and so amazed them all., Sat 22 Jan 2011, 16:01, Reply)

One molecule
is how narrow the edge of broken glass can be. Thus, it is unwise to put it in a plastic garbage bag and swing the bag carelessly by your side as you take it to the dumpster.

What's that rush of warm wet down my ankle?

Oh my, I seem to have sliced open my leg! I better clean it and wrap it up. "Stitches? Those are for pussies" says the five inch smiling scar on my leg. It's been there for ten years.
(WordsMeanThings, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 14:17, 1 reply)

I'm amazed
by the number of people who claim to have cut warts off and not have them come back. I had a very small one on the knuckle of my middle finger for years and as it was awkwardly positioned I'd catch it and pull it off accidentally on a regular basis and still that fucker kept coming back.

However, the interesting sciencey bit about warts and veruccas is that because they are caused by a virus, eventually your immune system will kick their ugly warty backsides into next week. The only thing is it'll just take it's own sweet time doing it. That's what happened to mine eventually - one day I realised it just wasn't there any more. My hand still looks slightly weird when I look at it closely, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "like the back of my own hand".

Length? It was more the circumference.
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 14:01, 3 replies)

At the ass end of 1992
several of us from the local bbs scene arranged to get together and paintball.

The place was way out in the sticks, and for the princely sum of $20.00Cdn (maybe twelve or thirteen pounds) we got camoflage coveralls, mask, pump-action gun and fifty paintballs. Off we tramped into the bush to the various marked out courses to make war on each other.

We selected teams and fanned out from our flags. We were in pairs, because we thought this was sensible, and my partner and I crept along the fenceline at the edge of the property.

It may be worth noting that out where we were, fences tended towards three strands of barbed wire.

So. Various firefights ensued but eventually the pair of us were behind partial cover faced with five or six people shooting at us. We decided to fall back a bit, so I rose and turned to run back.

When I came to (probably a half second later) my friend was at an odd angle and my hand seemed to be stuck. It turned out that just as I started my run back along the fence a paintball hit me in the head (full headgear didn't really exist in the sport back then, and our masks stopped well before our ears) and stunned me just enough to slip in the snow and, flailing, wrap my hand a few times with rusty barbed wire, then fall down tugging the barbs into my hand.

While I was on the ground I couldn't work out what was wrong with my hand at first and so kept tugging it, until my friend managed to get through the ringing in my ear. I managed to unwrap the wire and get my hand free.

Blood wasn't pouring out, but it was dripping at a good rate. I packed it with snow and began the (what seemed to be) long trek up the hill to the "office" (really just a big tent that had been blown up by Airwolf when they filmed an episode in the area) all the while being peppered with paintballs. I remember being alarmed at how far back I could see my blood drops on the snow.

Getting to the office, I drop the snow and inspect the damage. I had really opened up the meat of my palm below my thumb. There were smaller tears on the back of my hand and wrist as well. There was no first aid to be had, though. Not even band-aids.

It didn't hurt much, probably because it was numbed a bit by the snow. I didn't want to have to round up the three that I'd driven up there for the hour's drive back to the nearest town, and I still wanted to play what seemed to be an immensely fun game. So I got the little hotel sewing kit that had been kicking around in my car for a few years and sewed myself up.

I packed more snow on the hand to keep it numb, selected the white thread over the black (because it looked less fuzzy), used the fingers of my left hand to shove the skin up to make a bit of a ridge, and started sewing. I felt the push of the needle and tug of the thread, but it didn't hurt. I just started at one end and looped the thread every 5mm or so until I couldn't hump the skin up anymore.

Then wrapped the hand with lots of paper towels, took a mitten from the lost and found to keep the towels in place, and went back to play.

My girlfriend was well pissed off of course, when we were driving home. By that time it had already started to heal, and I cut the thread that night before bed. I never ended up going to the hospital for a shot, which I knew was stupid.

It healed fine, I never got sick, and there is only just the faintest white line to show for it.

Length? Maybe forty-five centimeters of wire, leaving a three centimeter scar.
(Ejaculantern was caught desecrating pumpkins on, Sat 22 Jan 2011, 2:08, Reply)