The Plank

I was sanding down a bench that we had in the garage on Saturday morning.  I wore gloves and had a large piece of sand paper that I was working with, so I thought I would be safe.  Unfortunately as I was sanding, a chunck of wood broke off and implanted itself in my hand.  There was a little piece sticking out, so I tried to pull it out... FYI, don't do that.  Obviously, it broke, and I was left with a searing pain in my palm.  

I ran to the bathroom and soaked my hand for about 10 minutes.  Bobby tried to squeeze it out, but I just cried and cried, so he stopped.  We decided to go to Urgent Care and have the doctor look at it.  On the way there I moved my pinky and felt a sharp pain.  It was then that I realized the splinter had gone clear across my hand and was pushing the skin out at the base of my pinky finger.  We knew at that point that the doctor was probably going to have to do something more invasive to get it out.  We started refering to it as a "plank" because, as Gina said, "splinter just seems too insignificant."  It made me think of the Bible verse that says, "...first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."  

We got to the doctor and signed in.  I got a funny look when I said, "I have a really bad splinter."  Who goes to Urgent Care for a splinter?  What a wuss.  When the nurse came and got me, she took us in the office and got information from me.  As she was typing, I asked her, "do you have novocain here?"  She kind of laughed, apparently thinking I was being dramatic, and after a pause said, "I don't know if that's necessary, but yes, we do have lidocaine here."  

Well, turns out I was not being dramatic.  The doctor came in, also thinking it was no big deal, took one look at my hand and said, "hmm, I need to go get my tools."  He said that he had only seen a splinter that bad on one other person who sat down on a bench the wrong way.  So, after a little bit, the nurse came in to prep my hand.

The doctor (actually, he was a PA) numbed my hand up really well (it took him 2 tries), and then spent about 15 minutes trying to dig it out.  He kept saying that it was bleeding too much for him to see what he was doing, but he could feel the "plank" with his needle.  At one point he said to us, "if I can't get it out, I may have to call a hand surgeon in to make an incision."  Not a great thing to say in that moment.  After a long time, he finally was able to push the plank up and grab it with the tweezers.  He got the whole thing out (thank you, Lord!) and it was an inch long!  

I also had to have a tetanus shot, which now hurts worse than my hand.  Oh well, I needed one anyway.  Bobby and I had planned a date that morning while his parents watched Gia.  We kept joking that it wasn't what we imagined, but at least we were creative in our dates and got to spend some quality time together.  But hopefully this will be the last time we spend our date in Urgent Care.