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This is a question DIY disasters

I just can't do power tools. They always fly out of control and end up embedded somewhere they shouldn't. I've no idea how I've still got all the appendages I was born with.

Add to that the fact that nothing ends up square, able to support weight or free of sticking-out sharp bits and you can see why I try to avoid DIY.

Tell us of your own DIY disasters.

(, Thu 3 Apr 2008, 17:19)
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While we're covering DIY surgery...
I made the mistake one night of walking home without my shoes on. They were stupid bastard high girly heels and they made my size nines hurt like a bitch. I was drunk, it was a warm night, I thought nothing of the safety of my tootsies...

The next morning, the sole of my left foot was really, REALLY sore. Just up towards the ball of my foot, couldn't put it down properly. I figured it was the shoes, I couldn't see anything there (mind you, the bottom of my foot was pretty disgusting from the walk home). I thought no more about it, and limped on...

Days passed and the pain subsided. But my foot never felt quite, well, right. Eventually, out of curiosity, I waited till my office was empty and slipped off my shoe. There, in the ball of my foot was a lump, hard and irregularly shaped. I poked, I prodded, I said "ow" quite a lot. What to do? Wait for a doctors appointment? Go to the NHS walk in centre? Or...

I nipped down to the lab and picked up some ethanol wipes, a spray bottle of ethanol, autoclaved forceps and a scalpel and a pack of fresh blades. I then hid in one of the instrument rooms, cleaned the forceps and scalpel with ethanol, just to be sure, then wiped my foot with the alcohol wipes.

And then I sliced. A nice neat incision about a centimeter long. Using the forceps I pushed the flesh on either side back slightly and bugger me, I could see something. For there, wedged in the bottom of my foot was something clear and shiny. I gently eased the forceps around it, grabbed and pulled.

And out slid a chunk of broken glass, about the size of a 5p piece and twice as thick.

It was at this point that I realised my foot was hurting like fuck and I had to sit in the "I'm going to faint" position for a minute.

But when I stood up, there was no pain, no discomfort and a couple of days later, no indication that I'd ever cut the bottom of my own foot open.

My triumph was shortlived. I recounted my daring deed to one of the graduate students in the lab who used to be a nurse. "That's nothing" she scoffed "I drained a cyst from Prof T's neck the other day with a 21 gauge needle..."
(, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 22:06, 5 replies)
It's like posting on QOTW
Someone else has always got a better story than you.

That's impressive DIY surgery mind. Have a click.
(, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 22:28, closed)
Isn't it great
working in a lab where you have easy access to such tools and equipment? Just like my liquid nitrogen theft procurement to freeze my wart.

It must be crap in an office job. Imagine trying to perform open foot surgery with a stapler and a box of pencils!
(, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 22:29, closed)
click for candour
Ouch! Hope your foot's OK now
(, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 23:07, closed)
vacuum surgery
My dad swears by the way he removed a nasty cyst on his arm that was swollen and weepy. He put a tube over it and turned on the vacuum. sucked the bugger right out of his arm and he said "healed up lovely!"
(, Tue 8 Apr 2008, 3:03, closed)
I have been known to self medicate..
Is this the same thing.

Oh! and I'm a size 9 shoe. I've never worn heels. I would feel like a transvestite.
(, Tue 8 Apr 2008, 9:45, closed)

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