I’m going to remember that when it comes time to change. Switching part way through a year sounds like a PITA, but that might be because I’m not really a bookkeeper. If it wasn’t for my mother, who actually was a bookkeeper for many years, I’d be adrift.
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As I take my hiking adventures further and further out, the more I’m in a position where medical attention can’t get to me quickly. It’s more about needing it in a pinch. Though the farther out you go, the more you need someone to come with you.
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I’ve heard that there people it doesn’t work on. My dentist likes it because it wears off faster than novocaine, but he always asks “does lidocaine work for you?” I’ve never had a problem with it as a quick local anesthetic.
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A disposable stapling kit might be a better option for that. You can buy them at Amazon for about $15 and it’s already sterile. Just throw it in your pack and be prepared. It’s also easier for a professional to clean up and repair your meatball surgery afterwards, if it’s bad enough to need that. And if you’re tough, you can staple yourself without anesthetic. Stitching yourself (or anyone else) without anesthetic is tough.
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And for some of us, it works, but takes A LOT.
I had a minor surgery with a local, to remove a lipoma that was getting big and painful, and partway through I started to be able to feel the cutting. They didn’t believe me, perhaps because I was 16. But also because I was 16, my mom was with me and they listened to her. (I hope I wasn’t an asshole for making her watch my neck being cut open.)
My current dentist basically said “If you say so. I’ll give you double, and you holler if it starts hurting.”
So, there’s no way I’m ever giving myself stitches, but that stapler thingie might be a good idea to have around.
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I’m the same way. It takes boatloads of virtually anything to numb me properly. When I had my wisdom teeth (impacted) out, the surgeon swore they would only need a local. They wound up putting me out during the middle of the procedure.
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That sucks, I’m sorry to hear it. I dodged that bullet because my wisdom teeth were so fucked up. They put me under and showed me a dish of tiny, bloody tooth fragments when I woke up, like they used a jackhammer or something.
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Wow, a bookkeeper in the family. Extremely lucky. Understanding money in all its peculiar incarnations has never been my strong suit. I feel lucky I am not simply doing all this on paper paper paper.
MYOB / AccountEdge etc. has quite the learning curve. Strongly recommend you or your mom (or both) try before the buy. And for sure, if you do buy, it’s v useful to get the tech / customer support package for at least your first year of use.
Before all this, we just used spreadsheets for everything, but it got harder as the business grew and we had to account for aged receivables and bad debt and amortizing capital expenses. Aaaaaaargh… I wish I had had a mom with bookkeeping experience!
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My first aider friends recommend butterfly strips:
They can generally hold a wound closed long enough to get to a place that can close you up properly.
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I had to go to emergency to get a sub-fingernail splinter removed. Lidocaine did approximately nothing for me. I was injected maybe four times (a couple of shots each time), and by really extending my senses i could feel a touch of numbness.
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Absolutely. I always need a shitload of local anesthetic, and the worst is they have to give me so much it takes almost a whole day to restore feeling. Give me a general over local anesthetic any day. At least that way I can get some sleep.
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I have to see my relatives today … and I had to toss my latest batch of sauerkraut. My yeast says “best used by May of 2016” (not the worst I’ve ever made bread with). Other stuff to but today is not looking good at all.
My answer to your dentist would probably be “I don’t know. Can you aim it better than you aim novocaine? 
” Followed by ashamed apologies because your dentist hasn’t had a chance to screw up injecting me with novocaine. 
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We adopted an 8 y/o dog who had suffered from a stroke three months ago, the previous owners didn’t properly train or take care of it so it had food aggression issues. It bit our younger pup, we carefully decided to keep it after separating them for meals and he’s been the sweetest ever since. Well, until yesterday. We brought him to the beach and he tried to bite a friend’s smaller dog, and so now we’re taking him to animal control today. And back with just his humans and the pup he’s now more affectionate with, he’s prancing around and oinking friendly noises.
Fuck today, fuck people who get lets and don’t train them/can’t take care of them responsibly, fuck the shelter who told us he was fine in a multi-animal household, and fuck that we’re making a decision that may very likely end up in him being put to sleep.
I’m honestly at the bargaining stage, where I’m musing on the idea of still keeping him and dealing with the social fallout of never being able to invite those friends and their dog over again, but I know that’s not the responsible option either, as I’d still worry about my other pupper and kitty getting hurt at some point, or if a kid ever enters the picture… Ugh. Just so mad and nobody is at “fault” but the shelter that poorly screened him and the owners who had to give him up but only after so many years of poor caretaking and never fixing him. So much anger and sadness.
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Pulverizing them to fragments was the route they took with me too. I had no memory of the procedure for a couple of months, then slowly recovered some of the process. I kind of wish they had decided to put me under to start with. (Still wondering why all the dental assistants were giggling when I came to, but that’s actually one of the more pleasant memories.)
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a dentist once did this to me by way of a funny funny ha ha joke. donkey’s ears and it’s still not funny
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No thanks. Came to add that anti-diarrheal and pain meds (aspirin/ibuprof./etc.) are as critical as the stuff for closing wounds. 75 miles left to go to Mammoth on the PCT, I ate something (prbly summer sausage) and spent the next five days [weakly] puking and shitting and trying desperately to get calories into my system to get to the trailhead. Without my hiking partner, I would’ve been in seriously bad shape, but without the anti-diarrheal, it would’ve been even worse.
As for the pain meds, get the big honking pills because if you need it out there, it’s likely to hurt a lot. I’ve encountered a woman on the trail who’d fallen in a stream and tweaked her knee bad enough that she couldn’t walk on it at all. Nothing to do but splint it, cool it down, and manage the pain until she could be carried out.
A series of random events in a bar led me to get a splinter, maybe close to two inches, under the nail on my ring finger and past the first knuckle. The best part was seeing the barman blanche and sway gently when I showed him why I needed the pliers right then. But he did get me some pliers, pronto.
Lastly, as my “Fuck Today” entry: Why are a subset of my relatives racist? Over the weekend, and with the new school year, a cousin-in-law laughingly told me that he’d recently gotten the latest roster for the high school classes he teaches and boy howdy isn’t it funny that so many of these names have apostrophes, that they’re black names, har har har. And the person telling me this is an English teacher, so it’s not like he can’t read read his own subtext.
Har.
Har har.
A common retort from this person: I’m a teacher, how can you say that I don’t like them?!?
I’d post a “Shut the fuck up, Donny” image, but Donny wasn’t a racist like my relative(s).
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Racism in teaching is definitely A Thing. I was talking to a teacher just a couple of days ago who told me (with his own measure of disapproval) that he’d talked to plenty of teachers who used the phrase “the good kids” to mean wealthy and white.
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As the child of a mom who taught, of her own volition, in the marginally served areas of northern Flori-duh, I’m especially sorry to hear that.
I want to call up my relative and try to take apart this knot in a quiet and civil discussion, but my age and wisdom have not yet progressed to the point where I’d be able to anything other than some variation of “wtf are you a racist dickhead etc. etc. etc.”.
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Well, I certainly can’t tell you the best way to handle it, but if you figure it out, write a book. There are plenty of people who’ll pay for that “one weird trick” in dealing with relatives who say stupid shit. If you decide to do it, you might be able to muster some gumption by imagining you’re saving them before they end their career saying something dunderheaded on Facebook.
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