Today's Helpful Hint

We've all seen the Steve Martin movie "The Jerk," right? Remember the scene in which Steve's character in the film, Navin R. Johnson, gets a bit of advice from his surrogate father as he is preparing to leave for St Louis?

"Lord loves a workin' man; don't trust Whitey; see a Doctor and get rid of it."

It's sound advice - heck, it's RT's favorite advice. The last bit, the "...see a Doctor..." part. Yeah, that's real important and should not be ignored.

Case in point:

This is a picture of my buddy TD in his hospital bed this afternoon. Why, you may ask, is my buddy TD in a hospital bed? Well, it's simple. He didn't see a Doctor and get rid of it.

A week or so ago, as he was slicing into an avocado, TD accidentally cut his left hand with the knife he was using. It wasn't a deep cut, and it wasn't even very bloody. But it was somewhat of a serious gash, and made with a knife being used to prepare food, which meant it was covered with microscopic biological agents capable of serious harm.

TD bandaged up the cut and continued to prepare dinner, thinking nothing other than the cut would be a nuisance but not a handicap, as it was in his left hand and he is right handed.

He taped the two fingers directly above the cut together so he could still use the hand, albeit awkwardly and with a little pain. He never even entertained the idea of going to a hospital or Urgent Care place - TD had cut himself a hundred times if once, and he wasn't a hospital-visiting wuss.

Yesterday morning he woke up to find that his hand had swollen considerably, to a point where he could not bend his fingers anymore.

It was then he went to the hospital, and in short order it was determined that he had a fairly serious infection that had to be excised, stat.

The surgery effectively removed the majority of the infected tissue, and as of today the swelling has subsided a lot, but he had to stay in the hospital last night, and will again tonight, as he is hooked up to an IV that is pumping antibiotics into him 24/7.

Which leads us to today's helpful hint, or rather, hints.

1) You cut a gash into your hand (or any other area of your body), get to a Doctor. Especially if the knife you cut yourself with was exposed to organic matter prior to entering your body part.

2) Tetanus shots should be gotten every ten years. If you don't remember the last time you got a tetanus shot, it's probably time to get one.