So let me tell you about the incredibly stupid thing I did on Thursday. Well, I was getting ready to go out to see a friend’s singing gig, and so was putting in my contacts. I loaded up one contact with saline solution and popped it in my eye. Only, it wasn’t saline solution. It was ear-piercing cleanser. And thus began another trip to the ER.
For six and half hours I was stuck there. At one point they put this suction cup with a tube type thing on my eyeball (like taped it down and everything). For an hour it dribbled saline solution onto my eyeball. An hour. Eye wide open, with saline being washed directly onto it. Not fun. But then they check my PH level and it still sucked, so the doc told me we were going to have to do it again.
Then enters the fabulous/slighty nuts nurse. He tells me we can skip the suction cup method, and just hands me the tube attached to the saline and tells me I can let it drip directly onto my eyeball at full speed. Without the cool little ‘bag to catch the saline’ this time, it empties all down my back and into my hair. But I’m not going to complain, because it took 15 minutes instead of an hour, and wasn’t quite as painful (but it still hurt). Doc checks PH again and it still isn’t right. So we have to repeat. Only this time the nurse gets called to move a patient to a bed. So he tells my friend to turn on the saline drip IV ourselves and get started. Ummm… what? Do I look like an RN? We tried for about 10 minutes to figure out how to turn it on and then called the nursing station. Before the nurse got there though, we did figure it out! And it was empowering to be able to turn it on and off. Anyway I forgave him because he was kind of cute and funny.
So, my eye is fine now. But I still have to laugh at how stupid I was to have ended up there in the first place. Anyone else have any stories of stupid ways they’ve injured themselves? Whether or not you ended up in the ER for it.
Michelle
June 22nd, 2009 at
1:43 am
Shelli – Ouch! I hope you’re better! I once did something similar (though no ER visit was necessary) back in the day when contacts were cleaned by enzymes-I guess I didn’t wash my contact off quite good enough so when I stuck it in my eye the peroxide still left on it burned and my eye slammed shut – so then I couldn’t open my eye to get the #$%$@ thing out! Yee-ouch! I can’t imagine doing what you did! I got throw away contacts recently and they make me very happy – use one day, throw, start with new clean pair next a.m. :yes: MUCH better!
Michelle (antinmitchfield)
Natasha A.
June 22nd, 2009 at
8:58 am
Yeah….let me count the ways….
We were packing up our apartment, and I dropped a pot. Well, I couldn’t let the pot hit the ground could I, I mean it might break!?!? lol
Yeah, I caught it. With my wrist.
I thought I had broken it. It went so black and so swollen, SO fast, it was scary. It was either broken, or I had done serious damage to a vein. It ended up being fine.
OH, and well, lets say stupidity runs in my family…
My brother, 13 at the time, decided to play with my dad’s gun powder. He tried to blow up a dinky car by filling it with the powder and sticking matches into it. He thought he would have enough time to run away. Yeah, not so much. Eyebrows gone. Hair standing straight up. AND if you look in his hands today, 28 years later, you can actually still see the flecks of gun powder still embedded in his hand.
Glad to hear you are ok Shelli! lol
Kate Diamond
June 22nd, 2009 at
9:21 am
Ah! My eyes were burning as I read your story. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
I once sprained my ankle writing. Yes, seriously. And it was back in the days of not having health insurance, which made it doubly fun. I was up writing for a marathon session. My legs were crossed. They’d fallen asleep. I didn’t realize this until I tried to get up and hit the floor like a ton of bricks.
Fabulous.
Amy Ruttan
June 22nd, 2009 at
11:13 am
As a contact wearer my eyes are seriously twitching. :doglick:
The only dumb thing I did recently was sprain my ankle falling out the door, after my mother said “Don’t fall.”
Basically I went to the ER waited three hours to be told they can’t do X-rays because I was 35 weeks pregnant so go home and hope it’s not broken. Which it wasn’t, but still. Grr.
Kate Douglas
June 22nd, 2009 at
11:14 am
Shelli…ouch. Just…OUCH! I’m glad you’re okay.
Shelli
June 22nd, 2009 at
11:21 am
Michelle, ouch! How did you ever get it open then? Eeek.
Natasha, that sounds painful! It’s amazing how parts of your body can turn so many scary colors and be so painful, but not actually be that damaged. And big
on your brother!
Kate Diamond! LOL. I’m not laughing. But that’s kind of funny. And yes painful.
Amy, I remember seeing that on Twitter! So glad you’re okay. That’s scary when you’re pregnant!
Kate Douglas, hey girl! Nice to see you here :wave: Thanks! I’m doing much better (though still wearing my glasses. I’m waiting for new contacts to ship. Just don’t trust that I flushed all the bad stuff out of them!)
Danielle
June 22nd, 2009 at
11:38 am
Shelli- glad to hear that the eye is completely healed!! Nothin like spending your Thursday night in the ER with a nice although slightly nutso nurse! :evillaugh:
Weirdest injury- I broke my finger back in 7th grade while trying to open a door. I was going to be late for Spanish I class and the door was closing. I went to catch the door and instead jammed my finger into the door, breaking my index finger in 3 different places. I had to spend the rest of the day with nice on my finger until I could get home and then had to head to the ER since both my folks got home from work after the doctor’s office closed. Not my idea of how to spend the evening as well! :lmao:
Feisty
June 22nd, 2009 at
1:12 pm
Aww!! You poor thing! Big hugs going your way. I hate the ER!!
MB (Leah)
June 22nd, 2009 at
1:15 pm
Shelli- I’m glad nothing worse happened. But ugh, what a way to have to spend an evening.
What I find shocking is the nurse telling you and your friend to do the machine yourselves.
I’m a caregiver for the elderly in their homes and I have to tell you that I’ve had Dr.s tell me it’s Ok for me to put a catheter in and showed me once how to do it on a man. OK, it’s easy, but still. I’ve done tube feedings, given shots… all kinds of things that usually only a nurse or Dr. are qualified to do and was told OK by a nurse or Dr. Things are getting so lax. But I like that.
My stupid accident? When I was 7 I stood on a nail sticking out of a wood board and rotated on it to see how long it would take to go through my sneaker. Shit for brains doesn’t even cover what I have.
Of course, it punctured my foot and I had to go to the ER. Mom was not happy when I told her that I was standing on the nail and twirling.
Shelli
June 22nd, 2009 at
2:52 pm
Danielle, thanks again for going with me! I so owe you!
And OW on the finger breakage!
Feisty, yeah it can be sucky.
Leah, oh OUCH!!! I bet that killed! LOL. The things we do as kids. I remember actually (you reminded me!) of jumping into a rowboat once barefoot, and landing right on a rusty rake. 3 puncture wounds!
Ames
June 22nd, 2009 at
3:07 pm
LOL aw take care of yourself hon
Carol
June 22nd, 2009 at
4:02 pm
I once dropped an antique flintlock on my foot and broke several toes. They just healed up and I dropped a vaccum cleaner on the same toes and just about severed them completely.
Then there was the time I poked myself in the eye with a stick . . .
Does setting my hair on fire while serving desert to my inlaws count?
:doh:
Shelli
June 22nd, 2009 at
11:14 pm
Carol, lol, you sound as accident prone as me!
Ames, will do
Karen
June 22nd, 2009 at
11:21 pm
Yikes Shell you already know you have my sympathies. Ouchie ouchie…
A ceramic snowman fell on my head right before Christmas hmmm I think 10 years ago. He had a very sharp carrot nose and it sliced my head. I bled everywhere, was in emergency at 10 at night and had to get six staples in my head. The shot the dr gave me prior to the staples hurt worse than the actual stapling.
I still have that snowman. His name is now Killer. LOL
Rob Graham
June 23rd, 2009 at
8:21 am
Glad you’re better, Shelli.
The only thing I can think of is that time I walked into a telephone post.
She was worth it.
Vivi Andrews
June 23rd, 2009 at
1:46 pm
Oh my goodness, Shelli! I’m glad your eye is better now.
And on the odd trips to the emergency room… well, there was this one time in college. Let’s just say, if you’re going to jump off the back of a couch, make sure the cieling doesn’t have any sharp edges and there is no one sitting underneath you prone to back spasms. Thirteen staples in my head later, everything was hunky dory. And I have a nifty scar!
Shelli
June 24th, 2009 at
3:22 am
Karen, ouch! I still can’t believe that. Bastard snowman.
Rob, thank you! And running into a pole for a cutie is totally worth it!
Vivi, umm ouch!! LOL. I’m going to have to remember not to do that one!