(no subject)

[redbird]

When julian_tiger updated his journal to tell everyone about his fine, fierce new game, he didn't mention that he'd drawn blood. I think he doesn't know, because I pulled the hand well away before it started bleeding.

It wasn't a lot of blood--but he left me with three scratches, on two different fingers. Add that to the cut on a third finger (also on the left hand) from the breadknife over the weekend, and I had a lot of bandages on last night. I've removed them all, because they interfere with keyboarding and I'm no longer bleeding, but it's another argument for taking today easy. The main argument is simply that I'd run around from Friday through Tuesday--two long bus rides, computer shopping, socializing, and the zoo--and need the rest. It is a very good thing that the current project lets me work at home: I'm not sitting in bed all day, I'm working (I hope productively) while I drink my tea.

If we play that game again--and we may, he liked it--I'm wearing protection, either garden gloves or oven mitts.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I've always been particularly careful with cat scratches. I always let them bleed for a couple minutes, even squeezing a bit to get the blood flowing to wash out the wound, and then I use antibiotic ointment on them. It's pretty much the ONLY minor injury I use ointment for.

See, one of my friends once caught a case of bubonic plague from a cat scratch.

Fortunately, she's got a pretty healthy immune system (I mean, other than the fibromyalgia), and she works in a hospital. So, when she started to get dizzy and stuff, she just had to walk next door to the ER, where all the doctors, who are her friends, scolded her for not coming in sooner.

She made a full recovery (as 95% of patients with cat-induced bubonic plague do if they get treatment in time -- without treatment, mortality is 50%), and I think the doctors got a paper out of it. But, since then, she's been careful with cat scratches. Not that she's ever avoided having or caring for cats -- she just makes sure to let the wound bleed out when she IS scratched, and gives that advice to her friends, too.

One reason that she's not terribly personally worried about pandemics (although, as someone who works in health care, she's professionally concerned), is that she had the flu both in the pandemic of 1950, AND the one in the 60's, AND she's had the plague. She figures her body's pretty good at surviving these things by now. . .

[redbird]

I let it bleed a bit, ran plenty of water over it, then dried it, applied pressure, and bandaged it. (There's one scratch I literally didn't notice until this morning--and thus accidentally covered with the tape part of the bandage, not the gauze.) But I have a healthy immune system too.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Also, bubonic plague is really kind of obvious if you're paying attention.

If you start to develop buboes, go to the hospital. It's a pretty simple rule of thumb.