Wrong Tool for the job...

[mickeyw]

Good grief Jeff, that was a close one. Glad you're on the mend.

I'll echo what others are saying - your antics make Nige's efforts pale into relative insignificance🤣. Nige don't go getting all competitive will you!

As much as your story telling over the years generally has top level entertainment factor, we would like you to stick around a while longer please.

I think many of the older ones of us are from the 'wait it out and see if it gets better on its own' camp, rather than rushing off to the doctor for  every scratch.

It was pretty much a year ago exactly that I was sitting in my home office thinking that I didn't feel great, and wondered if I'd eaten something dodgy. As the day wore on I felt worse and was persuaded to ring the doc, who told me to come and see him immediately. Anyway, long story short, my appendix was removed by 10pm that night. Further ignorance off said problem would have been a bad idea. Lessons to learn.

[HoSS]

I learned the 'never heat ball joints' one a few years ago, thankfully the bits missed me, but i still have tinitus in one ear.

 

[Snagger]

Blimey Jeff, that is quite a close shave.  That could have ended very differently, very easily and very quickly.  Glad you’re on the mend, though.

I had something vaguely similar, though less dramatic, last week.  I’d only had some mild, intermittent digestion problems that had been increasing, but a visit to a company doctor in early may ended up with multiple blood tests, disappearing down a rabbit hole of checks for alcohol abuse and the implied accusation that goes with it, colonoscopy, biopsies and ultrasound checks on all the organs looking for signs of cancer amongst other things.  Last week had me in hospital for removal of the whole gall bladder as they found several large stones, one as big as my thumb, causing distension and marked inflammation.  The surgeon said afterward that it would have ruptured in another 2-3 weeks.  They also fixed an unknown hernia while they were at it.

We all have other friends who have told us stories about having put off going to hospital or doctors for a long time for all sorts of symptoms that may seem small, but the lesson from all those tales is go and get a qualified opinion if you have anything unusual.  Men are notoriously bad for putting up with discomfort and underestimating the importance of minor symptoms of illness.

 

 

 

 

[Happyoldgit]

7 hours ago, Snagger said:

Blimey Jeff, that is quite a close shave.  That could have ended very differently, very easily and very quickly.  Glad you’re on the mend, though.

I had something vaguely similar, though less dramatic, last week.  I’d only had some mild, intermittent digestion problems that had been increasing, but a visit to a company doctor in early may ended up with multiple blood tests, disappearing down a rabbit hole of checks for alcohol abuse and the implied accusation that goes with it, colonoscopy, biopsies and ultrasound checks on all the organs looking for signs of cancer amongst other things.  Last week had me in hospital for removal of the whole gall bladder as they found several large stones, one as big as my thumb, causing distension and marked inflammation.  The surgeon said afterward that it would have ruptured in another 2-3 weeks.  They also fixed an unknown hernia while they were at it.

We all have other friends who have told us stories about having put off going to hospital or doctors for a long time for all sorts of symptoms that may seem small, but the lesson from all those tales is go and get a qualified opinion if you have anything unusual.  Men are notoriously bad for putting up with discomfort and underestimating the importance of minor symptoms of illness.

 

 

 

 

Best advice.

If I had not have walked into A&E suffering from severe stomach pains that my GP had put down to pulled stomach muscles I would not have been diagnosed with the Big C and most definately would not be gracing this forum, or anywhere other than heaven or hell with my presence now.

[monkie]

I heard somewhere that one of the many reasons women generally live longer then men is that on the whole they will talk about things and go to the Dr rather than ignore it or wait for a bit to see if it goes away. 

One of my friends wife saw blood in her stools so went straight to the Dr and insisted on an emergency appointment. Cut a long story short she did have bowel cancer but lucky caught it in the early stages. She is still recovering from surgery but fingers crossed she should be okay as it hadn't spread anywhere and they were able to remove it all. 

[missingsid]

Totally agree, if anything is odd then get it checked.

My family has a history of Bowel Cancer. My brother saw his Dr for a check up and was told to go away as it was an old man's disease.

One Saturday I had a big night out and felt bad the next day. Come Monday all was OK and I went to work. Tuesday morning I felt bad again (now if I had one day off work ill people were surprised) I knew this was not right so I drove to the Dr's. My Dr took one look at me and called an ambulance.

Diagnosed with BC and met my future wife to boot.

[JeffR]

13 hours ago, Happyoldgit said:

Best advice.

If I had not have walked into A&E suffering from severe stomach pains that my GP had put down to pulled stomach muscles I would not have been diagnosed with the Big C and most definately would not be gracing this forum, or anywhere other than heaven or hell with my presence now.

SO glad you are still gracing these pages.

Ditto missingsid.

[Peaklander]

We are on a trip in Scotland. Today my wife was told by our GP by phone to go straight to minor injuries. As we are on a road trip and camping in our 110, she hasn’t been looking in many mirrors, as campsite facilities are closed or limited access.

Last week on Mull she apparently had an itch caused by a clothes label. It happened the next day then disappeared. She didn’t mention it of course 🙄

Almost a week later, on Sunday, a red mark appeared on her stomach and now it’s like the bullseye on a dartboard. The sign of a tick bite and probable Lyme disease.

After just a few minutes at hospital Melrose they confirmed what the GP thought and now she’s started three weeks of antibiotics. Funny thing is that she feels fine.

The tick must have stayed attached for two days!

 

I should also add that Jeff, that’s a heck of a story and a lesson I will remember. Glad you are on the mend. 

[Happyoldgit]

1 hour ago, Peaklander said:

We are on a trip in Scotland. Today my wife was told by our GP by phone to go straight to minor injuries. As we are on a road trip and camping in our 110, she hasn’t been looking in many mirrors, as campsite facilities are closed or limited access.

Last week on Mull she apparently had an itch caused by a clothes label. It happened the next day then disappeared. She didn’t mention it of course 🙄

Almost a week later, on Sunday, a red mark appeared on her stomach and now it’s like the bullseye on a dartboard. The sign of a tick bite and probable Lyme disease.

After just a few minutes at hospital Melrose they confirmed what the GP thought and now she’s started three weeks of antibiotics. Funny thing is that she feels fine.

The tick must have stayed attached for two days!

 

I should also add that Jeff, that’s a heck of a story and a lesson I will remember. Glad you are on the mend. 

I hope the antibiotics do the trick. Ticks are b@stards at this time of year.

[sean f]

Serious message and entertaining all in one go, that's not bad going!.

Just hope that now it summer you and Nige don't start spreading fertilizer and working on the Land Rover at the same time the thoughts of what you could achieve with a sack of Ammonium Nitrate and a container of diesel at the same time would be spectacularly messy, and from the past record quite possible!.

[JeffR]

On 6/19/2021 at 12:19 AM, sean f said:

Serious message and entertaining all in one go, that's not bad going!.

Just hope that now it summer you and Nige don't start spreading fertilizer and working on the Land Rover at the same time the thoughts of what you could achieve with a sack of Ammonium Nitrate and a container of diesel at the same time would be spectacularly messy, and from the past record quite possible!.

As a child/youth experiments with weedkiller were rather exciting, til bomb squad and the Constabulary got involved

[simonr]

57 minutes ago, JeffR said:

As a child/youth experiments with weedkiller were rather exciting, til bomb squad and the Constabulary got involved

You may have missed your calling - both for this and the original post.  Sounds like you ought to be in Movie Special Effects, where at least you get paid to do stuff like this!

Last week we were trying to (safely) remove a tyre from a 747 wheel (as you do!) but couldn't find the valve to deflate it.  It felt like the pressure was quite high - so we were discussing using a shaped charge to blow a hole in the tyre - from a distance.  That sounded a way-cool solution to me!  Unfortunately somebody found the valve under a cover.

Last year I had a small incident with a disc cutter which just brushed over the back of my (gloved) hand.  I didn't expect it to have done anything much but it had left a fairly deep cut across the back of 3 fingers.  I was just about to close the wound with Gaffer tape having cleaned it with Alcohol when my Wife (who's a Doctor, luckily) pointed out that the shiny thing in the wound was a tendon - and we had a little outing to (her) hospital.  I was kind of hoping she would get preferential treatment, and I'd be whished in to have it stitched up - but insteasd we waited like everybody else.  Several stitches from a very friendly male nurse - and I was back to cutting up bits of metal, a bit more gingerly this time!

I was very grateful that we have the NHS, and that I married a Doctor.  To my surprise, there are some things Gaffer tape can't fix!

[sean f]

5 hours ago, simonr said:

Last week we were trying to (safely) remove a tyre from a 747 wheel (as you do!) but couldn't find the valve to deflate it.  It felt like the pressure was quite high - so we were discussing using a shaped charge to blow a hole in the tyre - from a distance.  That sounded a way-cool solution to me!  Unfortunately somebody found the valve under a cover.

Shape charges are fun and if you have access to the right stuff remarkable easy to make, we used to use basic ones for cracking rocks with minimal damage to anything else around, the more precise you want to be the more complex they get but the basic idea is simple. Percussive hammers are also quite good for that sort of thing as well as removing bolts in places you don't want to be when the bolt moves, think over grown nail gun, again simple to make in theory but get it wrong and you have a pipe bomb instead. Unfortunately also total illegal unless you have the correct licenses.

[Snagger]

16 hours ago, simonr said:

Last week we were trying to (safely) remove a tyre from a 747 wheel (as you do!) but couldn't find the valve to deflate it.  It felt like the pressure was quite high -

Last year I had a small incident with a disc cutter which just brushed over the back of my (gloved) hand.  I didn't expect it to have done anything much but it had left a fairly deep cut across the back of 3 fingers.  I was just about to close the wound with Gaffer tape having cleaned it with Alcohol when my Wife (who's a Doctor, luckily) pointed out that the shiny thing in the wound was a tendon - and we had a little outing to (her) hospital.  I was kind of hoping she would get preferential treatment, and I'd be whished in to have it stitched up - but insteasd we waited like everybody else.  Several stitches from a very friendly male nurse - and I was back to cutting up bits of metal, a bit more gingerly this time!

I was very grateful that we have the NHS, and that I married a Doctor.  To my surprise, there are some things Gaffer tape can't fix!

190-230psi in service is normal.

Your Mrs need to use her position more!  Quite a few years ago, I was making new battery leads for my 109 and I slipped with the Stanley knife and got the new blade stuck into the bone of my left middle finger - the scar runs 180 degrees across the middle of the finger tip.  I pulled the blade out with a bit of a tug, but it bled pretty profusely as you’d imagine, so my next door neighbour drove me the couple of miles to A&E.  I was told it’d be the typical 3-4 hour wait, but five minutes later, my neighbour from across the road, a nurse in the department, saw me through the window between the waiting area and the nurses station and had me seen by two doctors and a nurse within another two minutes!  It’s not what you know, but who!

[missingsid]

True but flipside as my wife is a nurse and son an HCA a lot of the hospital staff are known to me. I have had some very intimate inspections made by family friends!