Cacti
Just had a huge cactus needle surgically removed from my thumb!!
Back story:
Rewind to about 3 weeks ago, D and I brought home some cacti for the apartment, so there I am on the floor repotting the biggest of them (about 10"s or so and mind you its very top heavy)
When all of the sudden for no apparent reason it takes a huge dive and lands right on my thumb, OUCH!!! I pull it off and have a puncture right below the joint and a full needle sticking out from the joint itself, which I quickly pull out, Ouch! Again. Now my thumb is in a lot of pain and visibly swollen, I take an Advil finish potting the damn cactus and forget about it.
Fast forward two weeks, the swelling is gone and there's no pain in the joint anymore, but I have this weird lump where the second puncture was below the joint, after a little home surgery to try and lance it, the lump goes down a little bit, but not completely. At this point we are the night before our flight for a week vacation back east, so again I do the Advil thing and say that if it gets any worse on vacay I'll just pop into an ER somewhere and have it looked at.
Well end of the vacation and the lump has come all the way back, though it’s not painful or even that uncomfortable, just annoying to look at and that its still there. So I make the appointment with my Doctor.
Today, I'm at the Doctor and he confirms what I thought 3 weeks ago, that there is something still in there, so he proceeds to numb my thumb (yes with a needle full of some sort of cane) and within minutes my thumb is completely without feeling, I even gave it a good flick with my other hand while the Dr isn’t looking just to check, heh. He then pulls out a scalpel and begins to cut a small slit over the lump, he then says it looks like a little bit of a cist has built up in there, and he takes some itty bitty forceps and begins to dig around and pull out the cisty material, and then with one little pull… Mazletov!! He pulls out a quarter inch cactus needle! How did that even fit in my thumb?! I am completely aw struck at the size of it and immediately ask if I can keep it, to which he replies "of course" and promptly drops it in a little vile of formaldehyde. Then with a Band-aid and a handshake, I’m off. YAY!
D and I have decided to display it prominently next the cactus that spawned it, seems fitting somehow.
So the moral of this story is: Stay away from the pointy end of Cacti
Back story:
Rewind to about 3 weeks ago, D and I brought home some cacti for the apartment, so there I am on the floor repotting the biggest of them (about 10"s or so and mind you its very top heavy)
When all of the sudden for no apparent reason it takes a huge dive and lands right on my thumb, OUCH!!! I pull it off and have a puncture right below the joint and a full needle sticking out from the joint itself, which I quickly pull out, Ouch! Again. Now my thumb is in a lot of pain and visibly swollen, I take an Advil finish potting the damn cactus and forget about it.
Fast forward two weeks, the swelling is gone and there's no pain in the joint anymore, but I have this weird lump where the second puncture was below the joint, after a little home surgery to try and lance it, the lump goes down a little bit, but not completely. At this point we are the night before our flight for a week vacation back east, so again I do the Advil thing and say that if it gets any worse on vacay I'll just pop into an ER somewhere and have it looked at.
Well end of the vacation and the lump has come all the way back, though it’s not painful or even that uncomfortable, just annoying to look at and that its still there. So I make the appointment with my Doctor.
Today, I'm at the Doctor and he confirms what I thought 3 weeks ago, that there is something still in there, so he proceeds to numb my thumb (yes with a needle full of some sort of cane) and within minutes my thumb is completely without feeling, I even gave it a good flick with my other hand while the Dr isn’t looking just to check, heh. He then pulls out a scalpel and begins to cut a small slit over the lump, he then says it looks like a little bit of a cist has built up in there, and he takes some itty bitty forceps and begins to dig around and pull out the cisty material, and then with one little pull… Mazletov!! He pulls out a quarter inch cactus needle! How did that even fit in my thumb?! I am completely aw struck at the size of it and immediately ask if I can keep it, to which he replies "of course" and promptly drops it in a little vile of formaldehyde. Then with a Band-aid and a handshake, I’m off. YAY!
D and I have decided to display it prominently next the cactus that spawned it, seems fitting somehow.
So the moral of this story is: Stay away from the pointy end of Cacti