Sunday, March 12, 2006

In Sickness and in Health and in Sander Accidents



I can't believe how long it has been since I posted. Things have been a bit hectic around here. As you know, we had a fun birthday celebration for T the day after we got back from Florida, which was a lot of fun. Late that night, M started feeling really poorly. The next morning, he had a fever of 101 degrees -- poor guy. He was pretty lethargic with that fever. Besides the fever and the general feeling horrible, he had a nasty cough that "hurts my chest more than anything I've ever felt." That fever and cough lasted for four days, at which point I pushed him out the door to the doctor's office. (Luckily during all of this, his fever responded to Tylenol, when I gave it to him. Also luckily, I was able to come home at lunch time every day that week to bring drugs from Walgreens, or make soup, or just make sure he was okay.) On Tuesday, T came down with the same thing -- but he only lasted for 30 hours or so.

Back to M -- Although he didn't have pnemonia, he was pretty darn close to it. The doctor treated him for pnemonia because of M's diabetes. It turns out that there was a viral infection going around (high fever and bad cough) that had an incubation period of 7-8 days and lasted about two days. We think that M and T both got it on the plane ride TO Florida. But, M's turned into a bacterial infection because of his compromised immune system due to his diabetes. M started the antibiotics late on Thursday night and began feeling a bit better on Saturday night.

Wait until you hear what happened on Saturday night....

Okay. I was putting the kids to bed and I heard M putzing in the garage. He had been in bed for six days and was beginning to feel better, so he was a little antsy. So, of course, he decided to work on the pine wood derby car. As I was tucking in the munchkins, I heard, "SANNNDDDRAAAA!!!". I ran down the stairs, sure that he had cut a finger off. To my relief, all of his fingers were intact. HOWEVER, his right arm looked horrible. He sanded his arm. Yes, you read that right. He sanded his arm, meaning, he sanded the skin off his arm.

Painful. Gross. Yuck. Blood. Bruise. Ouch!

The poor fever-induced man wasn't at his full capacity when he was sanding the car. He needed a belt sander, but didn't have one. So, he put his other hand-held sander (I forget what it's called) upside down in a vice and was running the car over it. Somehow (I don't quite understand this part) his arm got caught and pulled into the sander.

Here's a picture of his arm minutes after he hurt it. (Yes, I did stop and take a picture after we knew it wasn't life threatening - -but before we put on anticeptic and wrapped it all up.) Can you see the huge, raised, bruise underneath the major wound? It took up almost all of his forearm. Yowzer! The picture doesn't really do it justice, but here it was -- ten minutes after the trauma happened.




It's getting a lot better, but has a long way to go. Here's a picture of how it looked yesterday:





Anyway, the rest of this week wasn't the best, but was okay. M is finally feeling better pnemonia-wise. His arm still really hurts -- it hurts if I touch it, even lightly, anywhere. But, it's scabbed up nicely and looks like he'll have a cool scar when it's all healed.

2 comments:

CaliforniaGrammy said...

Dang! What a week you've had. Poor M . . . getting a virus causing yucky feelings and a nasty cough, all with dealing with diabetes at the same . . . can't be any fun. Sure glad he's getting back to his ol' self. . . but wait, is he? That sanding trick sounded a bit risky. I can't wait to see his owieeee, but I was like a.j. not really sure if I was ready to see it or not. I'll get myself psyched up for tomorrow. You deserve to do some pampering for yourself, now that the family is back to normal.

Aunt Patty said...

Sure hope he heals quickly. That sounds like a nasty, painful,wound. I'm impressed that you were up for taking a picture instead of fainting. You've come a long way S.!! Glad to hear he's on the mend. He probably should be seen for the wound. How's his Tetanus status?? That wound will be treated like a burn I'm sure, and he'll need more antibiotics probably. Uncle H says Now he needs a sealer coat on his arm before the varnish. Hee! Hee! Kidding aside, I'm glad he still has all fingers, and that is wasn't any worse.