My Wounds

I have a little friend named Marina. She just turned 5 yrs old. She has a big brother named Julio and a little sister named Maca'aya (or at least that's how she says it!). Anyhoo, my friend Marina just got her first set of stitches by FALLING and hitting the counter. As you will see, this is a normal phenomena that sometimes happens to people with heavy brains. Just because you have a heavy brain doesn't mean you should be treated differently than anyone else, except to be a touch more viligent. Why do I know about heavy brains? Because I am inflicted with the same problem!! I have dedicated this post to show you all exactly how I ended up with 6 sets of stitches and what you can do to avoid a laceration happening to you.

Stitches #1: This occured in the typical fashion. I was probably in a happy mood, adrenaline running high in my 18 month old body (mom to post a comment to verify age). I was probably chasing a brother around the apartment in Holcomb, KS (pop. ~6,000 at the time) with a belly full of raisin bran with at least two heaping tsps of sugar added to the top. If you notice Exhibit A, there is very little you can see of about a 4or5-stitch job right under where my right eye brow ends.



Exhibit B: Age 3. Playing on my father's new-to-him dynamometer. What's a dynamometer? It tests mechanical force such as horsepower. It's something little Stevie shouldn't have been stepping on in the first place. Notice the outer ear deformation that looks like when you stretch a tootsie roll too far.



Incident 3 and 4:

You would think that if one made a mistake the hard way that one would learn the lesson, say, loosing control of a fast moving bicycle and flying over the handle bars and landing on your big chin. Well it's a true story, back to back summers (I was 8 and then 9) and I only managed to change the location of the impact by exactly 1.6 inches. I would like to think that I could move it at least 10 inches if I where to do the same thing again. Notice that even as a man, I cannot grow facial hair in two symmetrical places on my chin.



The Saga continues #5: Age 16. I was working under an older vehicle with about a 9/16" wrench and it slipped. I only got two little stitches in a 1/4" cut in my wrist just below the thumb-side of my palm. The significant thing about this occasion is that I removed the stitches myself with my own pocket knife while I was supposed to be working on school work. If you're really hard, like the cowboys in the movies, you can get shot by an arrow, break it off at the shaft, ride the get-away trail, and then extract the head and sew yourself up around the camp fire with not too much hastle (although movies also show drinking plenty of liquid libations and then pouring an ounce or two at the point of entry just to get it good and sterilized.... AAAARRRrrrrgghhh! Anyway, you probably can't even see it.



#6 The Last of the WaBonkas...so far anyway!

So there I was.....in the very belly of the cargo ship engineroom bilges.....replacing a gasket in a 4 - 5 in. steam pipe. I was using 1-15/16" wrenches, which to get the full effect of my story, you have to understand that these are big-boy wrenches, OK? uughh. So I am leaning awkwardly over my work due to the cramped conditions under the deck plates and I was finishing the final torque check on my gasket replacement. I decided to give it the old extra 5 ft-lbs for conscience sake, albeit a little cock-eyed wrench-to-nut relationship.....and I pause here for effect......and I slowly point out that most cock-eyed relationships never really hold up under pressure before they have to readjust....*WHAM*...and the next thing I recall is that I was nice and warm and I realized that I must have been sleeping on the job. I also noticed that the was water leaking around me.....until I traced the water leak with my eye balls and figured out that it was not water and it was probably coming from my head. So I looked up from the Pit of Dispair and a shocked but calm supervisor pulled me out and put a clean rag over my forehead. I was sent to the doctor in a taxi (by myself) and stitched right up. As you can see I tried to match my left eye to my right eye like I did my chin. It didn't work out too good, but it almost matches Marina's cut, just opposite eyes. So Marina....welcome to the Heavy Brain Club!




PS - Again, heavy brains cause no significant change to having a normal life. Just look how good I turned out to be!