When I left you last, I was happily sleeping on Friday night after the big rain storm went through, forcing Ken to grill in the rain. Saturday morning however brought a fantastic morning weatherwise and I slept in, being the second to last of the 11 people in the house to get downstairs for breakfast.....and that was 9:00. Some early risers up there let me tell ya.
Anyway, after "whacking down" a couple of bagels as Ken likes to say and a couple of cups of coffee, I prepared for a day on the lake. Two of the guys went to get the pontoon boat early in the morning (we were renting one for the weekend) and had it down at the dock by the time I had my coffee. The whole group was heading down and I was following. As we walked down to the water's edge, we saw Hedge Fund Mark looking on as a young lad of 12 or so landed a good sized small mouth bass. After applying some sunscreen, I was ready to hit the boat, the water and the jet ski. Loads of fun awaited. Then Mark came over and said, "This kid can't get the hook out of the fish. Can you help him?" Now, I'm not a huge fisherman, but I was a day camp counselor for two summers and we went fishing several times a week.
So sure, I went over to help the kid out. This leads me to my favorite saying, "No good deed goes unpunished." Upon examining the fish, I realized the lad had caught the bass with a lure that had two treble hooks on it. What I failed to recall was that all of my fishing experience has been with single hooks. HUGE DIFFERENCE!!!
This is a typical treble hook used in fishing.
Well, after grabbing the fish, I tried to get the hook out of the mouth. The back treble hook stuck my index finger on my left hand, but only went in a small bit. This, as it turns out, was a warning shot from the lure. The next time it stuck me, it stuck me good, burying a barb into the side of my thumb on my right hand. With the help of Captain Jeff, we were able to get the fish off the lure at this point, but the hook was still stuck in my thumb and it was deep. Ken got a pair of pliers (what I should have used in the first place by the way) to help pull out the hook. No matter how much I maneuvered the hook (pushing, pulling, pressing, turning, twisting) while it was in my thumb, I was not able to dislodge it. When Captain Jeff finally said, "I read somewhere that there's a trick to doing this.....you have to.....push it in and pull it back or cut the hook and then push the barb forward through the rest of your thumb." that's when I said, can someone please take me to the emergency room and we'll just get a doctor to take it out.
Unfortunately, who wants to volunteer to take my sorry ass to the hospital instead of going out on a boat and drinking and having fun all day? Well, I guess I was Ken's responsibility for the weekend, so he volunteered like the true buddy he is and off we went. I had the lure still attached to the hook which was obviously embedded in my thumb, quite a crazy mental picture. I would have taken a picture, but the camera wasn't the first thing on my mind. Clearly I couldn't drive as I elevated my hand with the lure to keep the bleeding to a minimum.
Once in the car, we realized we didn't know where we were going and had to ask some neighbors. The closest place was about 20+ minutes away, not much fun if you have a barbed hook in your hand. We made it though and after waiting for 40 minutes or so, I was able to get in and see the nurse:
"So what's wrong Mr. Sutton.....oh, I see."
"Yeah, I have a hook in my hand."
"Otherwise how are you today?"
"Well, the hook in the hand pretty much dominates my state of mind right now."
"Ok, let's take your pulse.......60 bpm."
"Not bad for having a hook in my hand."
"No it's not. Let's take your blood pressure.......122 over 80."
"That's a bit higher than normal for me."
"Well, you do have a hook in your hand."
"Touche`."
The doctor numbed the thumb, made an incision and got the hook out.
"Ok Mr. Sutton, the hook's out. We're going to bandage it up. Keep it dry for the next few days."
"Um, no getting it wet?"
"That's right."
That obviously caused a dilemma for me as I was there to jet ski and such.
"What if I used those latex gloves over there."
"Hmmmm, that might be ok."
Boom, there it was, my answer to the weekend problems. I'd jet ski with a latex glove on!! Would I look gay? Absolutely. Would I look possibly retarded? Without a doubt. Would I be able to have water fun? Yes!!
The whole trip to the ER took about three hours round trip, maybe four after I had to get my prescription filled for antibiotics. Ken was great about missing the water time and was able to still get in a few hours on the water when we got back to the house. I went into the water as well, with the latex glove on and yes, I looked much like a Michael Jackson worshiper or boat happy proctologist ........ or in Kramer's terms, The Ass Man!
5 comments:
ouch, that sounds awful!!!! Though it does sound like the title of some urban folk song, "Joe the latex-gloved retard water skier"
Alexis - That's the best! Ricardo, write that down and put it on the wall in the office right over his desk.
You actually recovered quite well there Joe. I would never have guessed that you were the prize catch of the fishing trip.
Who would of thunk you'd find a Doctor with a sense of humour?
Ha,ha Alexis, very good.
The doctor was a really nice, low key guy. With the possibility of infection, I was very happy that I opted to go to the ER instead of trying harder to rip it out.
stef, you should write a song with that as the title!
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