Earlier splinters post was digressing, so, for what it’s worth;
Pop paid over a day’s salary when we wuz kids getting a big splinter removed from sister’s leg gotten climbing a tree. Fear stories of gangrene notwithstanding, learned from that if you let a deep splinter fester (not gotten in a barnyard obviously) for a week or so and then lance it, you will get the splinter easily along with a big ball of pus. Heck, just like popping big pimples when we was kids<G>.
Love to hear Gunners and Notchman and Theodora’s take on this (all fellow DIY amateur surgeons)
Replies
>(all fellow DIY amateur surgeons)
Does pulling your own tooth with needle nose vice-grips, count ?
Quittin' Time
Did you ever read John McPhee's book Coming Into the Country? There's one passage about a guy way out in the bush in Alaska, in the winter, who gets a sore tooth. It gets so sore it has to come out, so he goes after it with the pliers. But he can't do it, it hurts so bad he passes out. After the third try, he can't even make himself pick up the pliers anymore. When his hand gets too close, he starts shaking. So then he has to snowshoe miles into town, in screaming agony, to get his tooth pulled.
did you see Tom Hanks in "Castaway " ?... remember when he knocked out the abscessed tooth ?
Never read that. Can't say I have even heard the name.
My tooth had gotten to the point where it was very infected. It was so painful that strangely enough, after clamping the pliers on it, and starting to pull... the pain from that was actualy preferable to the pain from just sitting there and doing nothing.
Huge amount of a different kind of pain for a bit, then the pain was gone. Of course, it wasn't really gone, but the new pain was heaven compared to what it had been. LOL
Quittin' Time
I'm outta here if you guys start talking DYS nose jobs, cleft palete repair with 5 easy steps or home grown hair replacement implantation.
I learned a neat trick from a doctor I worked for. I ask him HOW I could keep a bandaid on those hard to hold places. (This goes for holding the drawing salve on the splinters for instance).
It turns out that there is this cheap stuff called tincture of benzoine. You clean the place you are going to stick the bandaid (or steri strip) with rubbing alcohol, then apply the tincture of benzoine. Let it dry a little like contact cement. It's cheap by the way and smells a little funny but not bad. I think you can get it without a perscription.
It'll stay on.
Never read that. Can't say I have even heard the name.
John McPhee is one of the best and most interesting and educational non-fiction writers in America.
I particularly like his collection "Giving Good Weight," but just about anything by him is worth reading.
He can take seemingly muindane subjects (modern truck farming to NYC) and make it fascinating._______________________
"I may have said the same thing before... But my explanation, I am sure, will always be different." Oscar Wilde
Ditto what Bob said. If you read books at all, get thee to a library, pick up any McPhee book, open it at random and see if you're not immediately s u c k ed into the narrative. The only ones I haven't enjoyed are where the person he chose to focus on is an unpleasant character.
Bob mentioned Giving Good Weight. Several of his other books are collections of shorter pieces, The John McPhee Reader, The Second John McPhee Reader, The Heirs of General Practice, plus two theme collections, The Control of Nature and Irons in the Fire.
And I have to mention the one that I think is the most perfect title for a book that I have ever seen, The Curve of Binding Energy. It's about atomic bombs, which some people may find unsettling.
I recommended one McPhee book to my dad, who liked it so much he went out and bought all the rest of them. Now he's read some that I haven't yet found a copy of. I loaned Looking For a Ship to a guy at work who brought it back the next day and said, "I hate you," because he'd stayed up all night reading it.
To those of you who read House and enjoyed it, Tracy Kidder is a good writer, but John McPhee is better.
His latest book is The Founding Fish. I haven't even seen a review of it, but I recommend it anyway, without hesitation.
well, I don't feel quite as bad about hijacking the other splinter thread now, nother vote for McPhee - in 98 he assemble a new book along with some former writing to form 'Annals of the Former World' - a trip across the US on I-80 (with side trips) - natural history, geology, local legend - 700 pages of delight - if your library doen't have it, suggest it -
BTW, I did finally post a pretty good post on removing splinters - http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=27213.29
I'm pretty sure "Coming Into the Country" won a Pulitzer.
"Any thread worth posting in is a thread worth hijacking" poet unknown.
Ok, you guys sold me.
I'll look up a book of his.
Probably "Coming Into the Country". But that trip down I-80 sounds good. As well as the "reader"s.
Thanks Dunc, Doud, Walker and Blodgett.
: )
Quittin' Time
Living, as you do, "on the land," I gotta think "Coming into the Country would appeal. But my favorite McPhee so far is "Control of Nature."
There are three essays, one on the Icelanders whose main harbor was threatened by a lava flow and their figthto save it. One on the Corp of Engineer's battle to control the Mississippi, and the third on California's effort to prevent the place from sliding into the ocean.
There are no bad McPhee books.
K-
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