The Farming McAfee's: A welding rod to the hand.

If you read my last ~~lengthy~~ post you may remember that B-rad had to work on the sprayer where his brother fell in a hole... I told you he hurt his hand welding & that I would tell you about that later.

Well it's later...

So it started innocently enough...B-rad sent a picture of his hand & said a 'welding rod' went into it. NOW-even city slickers are bound to know what a welder is... & you may also know it's hot as Hades.

Disclaimer: this is not B-rad - this is a pic I found on the internet to show you a welding rod. See that long stick thingie that goes down into a ball of fire? WELDING ROD.

I think the welding rod is like a metal stick thingie that when heated up melts onto whatever you're welding to make the 'weld'?

(My technicalness dazzles you, doesn't it?)

This was the first picture I saw of his hand the morning after he did it (Monday). It looks pretty harmless here...kind of like a bug bite. He had gloves on, but it went right through. It immediately cauterized the wound because it never bled a drop. I would say it went through his hand like it was butter!

That night I was awoken at 3:30 AM by B-rad tossing in the bed. NOW-B-rad doesn't toss & turn. He works hard & he works a LOT, people - so when he sleeps he doesn't move. He said he had been having chills & his hand was killing him. So I gave him some Tylenol to help his fever & at 4:30 AM when his alarm(s) started going off he emailed his work to say he was going to the doctor that morning. I got this picture around 8:00 AM that morning (Tuesday)...you can see the swelling starting.

He went to the doctor, got an anti-biotic & a tetanus shot & went off to work. The doctor told him it would probably be swollen for another 24-48 hours & to take ibuprofen for pain. He thought maybe he had damaged some of the ligaments that surround the knuckle as well. That was the day we got 1" of rain (my trusty calendar reminded me of that!) & I was glad it rained so he could stay home & rest a bit. When I got home from work he was laying on the couch sleeping off & on. His hand continued to swell so we took his wedding ring off as a precaution. (See the band-aid on his arm from his tetanus shot?)

This is also the definition of farmers tan...

The next day (Wed) I texted him to see how his hand was feeling & they say a picture is worth a thousand words...

Mmmmm hmmmm...

On Wednesday night B-rad ~~was fooling himself~~ thought his hand was getting better... He gauged his progress on whether he could make a fist. (Which I yelled at him about because I felt like he wasn't giving his hand insides a chance to heal & he yelled back at me that if he didn't make a fist back & forth it would get stiff & hurt even more.)

Hmph.

He seems to think it wasn't as red as the pic looks...but I beg to differ. He thought it was the lighting in ~~my new~~ the bathroom... Look at his arm - it's not red like his hand.

B-rad continued to go to work & farm each evening (you know - farming doesn't care about welding rods to the hand). He would try to baby it as much as he could, but that really doesn't work on the farm. I would beg him to put ice on it each night (he wouldn't) & I constantly reminded him to take his ibuprofen. (Because if he didn't take it it would start to hurt & bother him a lot...)

It stayed swollen that whole week. On Friday he sent me another pic asking if I thought he should go to the doctor. He had forgotten his ibuprofen the night before & it was swollen more & hurting. He could use it, but it was really tender. He was sure he had burnt the tissue/muscles/ligaments in his hand & his knuckle was hurting as well so he also thought he hit the bone.

Turns out a welding rod to the hand makes your knuckles disappear.

Shauna is a nurse so I told him to ask her what she thought. She told him to try & hold out onto Monday before going back to the doctor. She sent him a pic of what I'm assuming was a similar hand injury to what he had (I wasn't privy to this pic {& I'm happy about that}). She thought he had most likely burned the muscles in his hand. She told him to ice it & to continue the ibuprofen & to baby it as much as possible.

He did pretty well over the weekend of icing it when he came home in the evenings, but clearly he didn't baby it enough over the weekend. (He was putting down nitrogen & he uses his left hand to steer the tractor, plus he has to wrestle w/ hoses to fill the tanks w/ nitrogen.) This was my Monday morning update pic.

We are at past a week 'post-cauterization' & it's still swollen, it still bothers him sometimes, but it is getting better - he has knuckles again. I'm guessing the skin peeling is from the burning of the skin?