Ever had to rely on quick thinking and dubious memories of emergency response classes or demonstrations from action heroes to get your yourself out of a jam? Well, I’d like to reminisce about the time I became my own nurse and how I did it.
It was an average weekend with no plans with friends or family in which I decided to fix various bits and pieces of electronics around the house. The house was quiet as I whittled the afternoon making sure any item I owned wouldn’t break down on me for at least another month…Then suddenly, I accidentally cut my own hands.
It won’t lie about one thing I did panic for a few seconds as the blood started forming pearls and the pain flared up. I didn’t really have a particular part of me that I especially cherish before this story took place, but my hands became pretty a priority the moment I noticed large cuts on each my palms.
Of course, due to some nursing experience in my family, and the memories of watching countless action movies as an impressionable child, entertainment-seeking teen, and procrastinating adult, I had a generally good idea of what to do and use to solve this tiny case of bleeding palms. So I had to be my own nurse for a few aching minutes.
The most difficult part about this whole fraction of experience was finding all the necessary supplies around the house. Medical swabs, some wrapping paper, alcohol disinfectant, and absolutely no bandages were all I needed to be my own nurse on this average weekend.
Coupled with the fact that I was completely alone at the time I was cut since the family was off to browse at the shops or doing some weekend work, this was one of those moments where you realize you have absolutely no one to turn to but yourself.
So I followed the standard procedure I saw a few times before: stop the small amount of bleeding by keeping the pressure on the open wound, disinfect the cuts with the alcohol and bear the stinging sensation for a few minutes and finally apply the bandages on my hands. After all this, I could finally rest and take a bit of pride in the fact that I had to be my own nurse and the way I accomplished this task without freaking out about my accidental injuries.
Later I decided that this would be last time I’d ever catch myself being a shoddy nurse and took up an intensive first aid response course to ensure I learned from actually trained experts as opposed to resilient John McClane and cool-headed James Bond. Despite the brevity of the lesson, I managed to acquire an official certificate from the Red Cross itself which filled me with a bit of pride.
Nevertheless, I learned an important DIY lesson after this 4 minutes as an impromptu nurse: keep the vital supplies near you if you’re doing something dangerous, try to keep calm while fixing up any sudden injury, and maybe find a safer to fix your stuff around the deserted house. Maybe I can take a quick engineer in the future…
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