Lons wrote:Phil Pascoe wrote:If I get minor cuts or cracks I tend to get legs cut off.
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Only you could say that Phil, I don't know how you cope and keep your sense of humour.
Echoed here. Phil, you're brill, at many levels!
. . .
Given the above, I feel a bit wimpy in comparison mentioning this, but it reinforces the original point: two years ago this September, I fell over in the Teign gorge, Dartmoor, on some rock steps. I cut into my shin fairly badly, but washed it off in the hotel's gents' loo washbasin, stuck a big plaster over it and drove home to Bristol ('twas our last morning down there and we'd already checked out, otherwise I might have dressed it better). It seemed to heal fine for the first ten days or so.
Then, pretty suddenly, it didn't. An on-call GP 'looked at it' (by jpeg via email), and thought it was OK. I ended up in hospital for a day, being pumped full of antibiotics. They saved the leg, but it still took months to heal over.
The infection did for the lymph nodes in that lower leg, so I'm in surgical socks now (probably forever), and still limping, although that goes away if I exercise properly.
I was left in no doubt by the A+E triage nurse that it was 'just in time'. And all because I didn't put more effort into getting the wound cleaned and properly dressed in the first place.
So check the first aid box is up to date, especially with anti-bacterial cream, etc. I'm married to a recently-retired GP, who's in charge of that stuff, so it was rather a shock to discover that the equivalent in our box was around 10 years old, which probably didn't help me much, either. Just goes to show how easy it is to not replenish, etc.
E.