frostbite ain't no joke! ** warning some stuff not for the squeamish **

[ADeMartino]

forgive please the lack of capitalization, poor punctuation, and any typos. i'm typing this one-handed.

why? well yesterday morning it was 4 degrees f and of course all the fresh snow tuned to ice. my truck didn't even make it out of the driveway before skidding off the pavement. so i borrowed my neighbor's 4wd to pull it back onto solid pavement. no big deal. total time in the elements <1 hr. had gloves on and everything.

by 1pm all five fingers on my left hand were blistering up bad and turning an ugly shade of blue.. real bad.

1 blister?. lance it, bandage it, and move on. but on four fingers the blistering involved everything from the 2nd knuckle to the tip. the 5th finger was not as bad but still had a small blister. time to seek medical help. and folks, it was fugly. they peeled my fingers like a grape. 2nd degree 'burns'. and monday i have to go into the city to the burns unit at uc.

14 hours in the er. my left hand mummified. oddly enough my right hand is unaffected aside from some numbness. its amazing what becomes a challenge when one hand is out of service. washing dishes is obviosly verboten, but now using the bathroom is going to be...'entertaining'. and of course i've already spent 20 minutes typing this.

all this because my nieces school was on a 2 hour delay without bus service, and papa-san had to be on the job early. what sucked about it was when we got to her school, they had just (like only 5 minutes prior) decided to close completely for the day.

seriously pissed off at some school administrators right now. they do shit like this way too often.

[MoonCat]

Ow ow ow!! So sorry for you! Hope it gets better and you have complete use of your hand. Keep in mind that in future, that hand's going to be even more susceptible. Ouch.

Also, you've just totally validated my decision not to go to work yesterday when it was all of one degree F out here. I have to take the bus so I'd be outside for a while, not an hour, but still....

[NecessaryCatharsis]

Keep in mind that in future, that hand's going to be even more susceptible.

So do everything the doctors tell you or even suggest.

I got frostbite almost 20 years ago, and the area still is the first to get cold, the last to warm up and aches even when it's only -5C or so, and is impossible to keep warm when it's really cold no matter how many clothes I put on.

I also failed to follow most of my doctors instructions and got it cold again less then two weeks later, so hopefully you will have more sense!

[DeltaSierra]

Oh no, so very sorry to hear about this. I hope you heal quickly, and like others have already noted, be very careful exposing that hand to cold in the future.

We were hit with -8°F/-22°C with winds gusting up to 40mph, which pushed the wind-chill factor down to -39° with frostbite in less than 10 mins. I had to run out to the truck to get something and was a popsicle after only 30 seconds.

[Jester]

...using the bathroom is going to be...'entertaining'.

Two words:

Sit. Down.

[ADeMartino]

Two words:

Sit. Down.

well, now, see... that's the problem. trousers are a bitch one handed.

[Jester]

A bitch, yes. Impossible, no. And if you're just around the house, sweat pants or lounge pants are both comfortable and manageable.

[froglet]

A bitch, yes. Impossible, no. And if you're just around the house, sweatpants or lounge pants are both comfortable and manageable.

Or naked!
It's your place! right?

[ADeMartino]

Or naked!
It's your place! right?

indeed, but a wee bit too drafty for that. how drafty? (holds thumb and forefinger about 1 cm apart) THAT drafty.

sweatpants actually are how i'm coping with this (hopefully very) temporary handicap. my concern right now is i really don't need the enforced time off, though. the temporary labor place absolutely will not send me out with my hand like this.

and driving a stick shift is real fun, let me tell you.

[RootedPhoenix]

*hugs you*

Hope you heal quick.

[mathnerd]

Hugs and healing wishes!

And yeah, I get how miserable driving a stick can be with injuries. I messed up my wrist once and it made driving tricky at best, and then recently I busted up my left ankle. Floating gears on a synchronized transmission isn't really good, but you do what you have to do.

[strawbabies]

I'm so sorry that happened to you. For some reason, my (born and raised in Florida) husband doesn't understand why I don't like being in places that get snow and ice. It's fucking dangerous!

[wolfie]

Some time ago I had to drive stick with a broken right shoulder blade. Not fun. Wound up abusing the powertrain (start in 2nd, don't go higher than 3rd, slip the clutch a lot on starting up). Had a beater with a WIDE powerband - nothing in current production could take that.

[Estil]

All the more reason I made very sure to stock on provisions a day or two ago so I won't have to go out in the fun below zero weather (I can't even remember the last time our area of KY was below zero). True I don't drive and the two stores I use are just a few blocks away but why take any chances?

[Seshat]

Google 'assistive technology' and 'assistive clothing'.

The places and sites which specialise in these things will give you ideas: sometimes it's cheaper to buy an item from the specialists, sometimes the same thing is available cheaper at a mega-department-store.

Note, however, that in many cases the specialist-store version, even if more expensive, is more durable. In your case, however, durability is less of a factor than it would be if the handicap were permanent.

There are things you can put on your steering wheel - screwed on, temporary items - which can make it easier to drive one-handed. Or which can help you use your bad hand by pushing with your wrist.
NOTE: do NOT use these longer than you have to. There is a danger with them that in a bad accident which causes the wheels to turn rapidly, the steering wheel can be forcibly turned, and the device can slam into your hands and injure them. They are street-legal (at least where I grew up*), but are limited to those with a need for them.


* I have mentioned before that my parents ran a driving school. What I may not have mentioned is that Dad specialised in teaching the disabled. We had a car with a wide range of extra options which could be fitted. Including several different steering wheel doodads like this.