I am a perfectionist, I will admit that.
Our floors had been sanded and the stain had arrived but I wanted to make sure it was absolute perfection before we put a drop down. That work could be for nothing if the right prep wasn’t don, believe me. I brushed all the excess dust, of which there was plenty. I hoovered twice and mopped but thought at the last minute I wanted to go over some tiny areas by hand with a fine grit sandpaper just to ensure it was ok. My main concern areas were the small gapped areas between the odd join in the floorboards. There are only a couple of millimetres wide but there seemed to be some rough edges which I wanted to smooth off to ensure this floor was completely foot friendly!
So……. I got a splinter.
You might think that’s nothing and you’re probably surprised that I hadn’t already had one. It felt wrong as soon as I had done it. That wave of nausea consumed me where I thought I might pass out, dramatic I know, but it was like my body went into shock. I could see this splinter pinching my skin in deep to a point in my right thumb knuckle. I knew I was being a drama queen so tried to suck the splinter out to no avail, only succeeding in releasing the skin around the splinter. I mentioned it to Josh who assured me it would come out on its own and my mind was put at rest.
It was sore but aren’t all splinters? Anyway, fast forward a few days and my thumb was beyond painful. The swelling continued to worsen and it was almost purple in colour. I couldnt use it and even the smallest task like zipping up my coat was agony. I was still thinking, it’ll work its way out, it’s probably just a bit of infection. After all it was 100 year old timber lodged in there. I booked a doctors app 3 days after the incident hoping for some antibiotics and more reassurance that it would come out on its own.
I ended up being admitted to hospital.
The doctor sent me to A&E as she wasn’t happy with it and thought it needed to be looked at. In her words: “they’ll probably just pull it out there and it’ll be fine”. 6 hours waiting, 2 canuallas and 1 chicken kebab later I saw the doctor who said it would need to be surgically removed. I would need to be admitted to the ward for immediate IV antibiotics. Safe to say I cried and a long painful day passed before a slot for surgery was available.
Lesson learnt kids wear gloves! The one huge positive of the situation apart from the obvious that I still have a thumb is that whilst I was being kept in Joshua managed to stain the floors for me so I got out of that task so big thumbs up for that….quite literally.
