Wednesday, August 29, 2007

I Should Really Learn To Count (or MY EYE!!)

I almost frogged my Mason Dixon nightie AGAIN!! I thought I had 10 more stitches on one side then the other.

I shit you not, friends, I counted at least 15 times. Stitch markers every 30 stitches and everything. I was just about to (burn it) pull the long side off and frog away when I saw that one stitch marker seemed a shorter distance then the others. I counted, yet again, and realized I'd marked at 20 sts instead of 30.

Someday, I'll learn to count to 30. sigh.

In other stupid news...

I recently pulled some batteries out of one of the many kid toys in this house. The batteries were leaking and I wouldn't let the boys throw them away (which is usually their job) because I didn't want them to have that acid on their hands. I washed my hands really well and an hour later rubbed my eye. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! It burned. So. Bad. What are you supposed to do to get that stuff off your hands? I did wash and quite thoroughly. That was 2 days ago and I'm still wary of touching my eyes!

I did the same thing a few years ago with arnica cream. It was given to me by a classmate in massage school after I sprained my ankle really bad. (Which would put it more like 10 years ago instead of a few.) Arnica is a type of pepper and the cream was more of an oil-based ointment which meant there was no getting that stuff off your fingers. It's amazing at making bruises go away but you have to wear gloves either to apply it or for the next few days until it wears off your skin! Another eye-burner, for sure. Ask me how I know.

Which makes me think of yet another eye story!

So There I Was....

sitting at my desk in the eye clinic in Germany. (I was an optician in the Army for 5 years. We screened the patients for the optometrists. Stationed in Germany for two years.) I look up at my little window where people check in and there's a young soldier standing there looking back at me with one completely blown pupil.

OHMIGOD!!!! I said. To myself. To him, I said, "I think we need to take you down to ER". You see, when one pupil is completely open like that and the other is normal size, it's a HUGE indicator of a serious head injury. And the boy was just standing there! Not talking and looking in at me, waiting for me to say something, I guess. I actually knew him. He was one of the medics for one of the signal corps at that base. They worked in the basement of our building when they weren't in the field.

Anyway, the boy told me that ER had sent him up to us and that it wasn't a head injury. Here's what happened:

In the gas masks that are issued to soldiers, there's a little side pocket that holds 2 0r 3 ampules of atropine. Atropine is a sedative (as I remember it) and if you're gassed before you can get your mask on, you're supposed to self-administer the atropine. You take off the cap, shove the needle in your thigh, hit the top to shoot the medicine in, then you stick the needle through your shirt pocket flap and bend the needle so it hangs there. Stick and Bend, Stick and Bend. It's something we all learn in Basic Training. You hang the empty ampules on your shirt so when someone finds you, they know how much you've already administered. Basically, if you're using the atropine, you're fucked. It's going to keep you comfortable and sedated so when the gas you were exposed to kicks in, either you won't feel it or you won't care that you're feeling it.

OK, the medics in the basement were going through all the gas masks and getting rid of the expired ampules. They were sticking and bending the full ampules onto squares of cardboard to send back to the manufacturer so they could get replacements. One of these ampules when stick and bended (?), popped open and shot this medic kid dead in the eye! He walked upstairs to our little ER and they sent him up to us.

I got him in to see the optometrist (Cpt. Renee Allison, where are you?) and she laughed her ass off! He asked, "Is there an anecdote?". That made her laugh even harder, "No. This is an anecdote. You mean antidote and the answer is still no. There is no antidote." She gave him quarters for 2 days (sent him home, basically) and gave him a prescription to wear sunglasses 24/7 for a week (yes, in the Army, you need permission for such things). She laughed for days over this. Easily amused, loved her!

That poor kid, though, eye all messed up, being laughed at and probably high as a kite. Come to think of it, maybe not so "poor kid" after all! Even with his eye all messed up and being laughed at, he was probably too high to care.

Good times, Ruth!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

speaking of being wary of bad stuff on the hands, my husband told me a story that involved a chest cold, Vick's vapor rub and a late night bathroom call. Needless to say, hand washing is everyone's friend.

Anonymous said...

An eyeball story! Ewww! (It made me laugh, though!)

Anonymous said...

Of course, we all know enough to wear rubber gloves when handling jalapenos, right? Or else don't even think of touching your contact lenses for about a week.

knitnzu said...

That's hilarious, well except for the pain in your eye. Try tiger balm for that-ouch! (arnica is actually in the aster family) I had a stupid thing with a syringe the other day...couldn't remember which tip I used to suck up the ivermectin (to adminster orally-I pulled the needle off first). When it wasn't going up the tiny one, I emptied the syringe by plunging it, and vwoosh, the needle flew off and it was sticking straight out of the rubber mat in the sink. Glad. It. Wasn't. Over. My. Leg!

sophanne said...

The best part about reading your blog is that you know so much about so much stuff that I know nothing about.

sophanne said...

except for maybe learning to count. I think we're even steven there.

Chris said...

Ouch! My eyes are all squinty in terror.