Work Injuries

I sometimes think that I think I'm superwoman. I tend to try things and think I'll be okay...I'll be the exception. At my mom's house, I pulled a plug that was outside that happened to be a HUGE fuse for the air conditioner and according to my uncle I could have been spending my next month in the hospital. Luckily the power was off to the house. Then there was last nights experience with me on the laptop in the storm (I know, stupid!)

I was extra careful today when I was messing with the wires for my XM Satellite Radio as it stopped working recently. And this reminded me of one story that reminded me of others....

Back when I was the Electronics Product Specialist for MCCS in 29 Palms, CA, I was installing car stereos on a sound board for display. I was trying to move this huge wall display so I could unplug it before I installed the new stereo. I couldn't get the display to move much, so I stuck my hand back their to unplug it. I got it about half way unplugged, when I went to reach back to finish the job....

....I touched the actual metal prongs on the plug! That about zapped the hell out of me. My fingers lacked sensation for a couple of days! My supervisor loved writing up a report about that!

Then, I was sitting on the floor running TV cable to a converter so that all the TVs would display the same image (DVD or Video) It's very appealing as you walk in to the store and see a wall of colorful cartoons!

I was leaning back on my left hand while my right hand was screwing in the cable. All of a sudden, I feel about about 200 lbs on my left hand. I look up in agonizing pain to see a young boot Marine standing on my hand.

I get up with my hand crippled. Turns out I fractured my middle finger while the rest of my hand was swollen and black and blue!

Then, I moved to Yuma. I worked about 60 - 70 hours a week...only taking Sundays off. There was one day that I was having problems with my left eye. It was bothering me. It was dry, my contact kept messing up. Then, I was at home having lunch and took a drink of my soda to see it miss my mouth and fall on my shirt. I was having problems with the left side of my face. I went in the bathroom to find that I could not move the left side of my face. I couldn't blink my eye, the left side of my mouth drooped. I called my mom freaking out. She starts to freak out that I had a stroke. I was 21 at the time. I highly doubted I was having a stroke.

I went to Urgent Care and they didn't know what it was and sent me to an eye doctor. The eye doctor said it was Bells Palsy. I had never heard of it. He said it's usually temporary. They were unsure of the cause but they contributed it to stress and lowered immune system. He said that there was no known fix but that steroids had been shown to possibly help.

Meanwhile, I had to wear a patch over my eye and keep my eye taped down since I couldn't blink. I had to drink out of a straw and eat on the right side of my mouth. I can't describe how miserable it was. I took the steroids religiously. It took about 3 weeks for it all to go away.

A friend of mine in California asked me weekly if I was taking the steroids. When I was better, she asked me if I remembered Kris, a girl we worked with before. I said yes. Well, one side of Kris' face drooped. My friend told me that she got Bells Palsy while she was on a Navy Ship and didn't have steroids available to her, and now she's permanently like that.

Scared the shit out of me! The steroids made me gain mega weight but that's a hell of a lot better than what it could have done if I didn't take them.

Then I moved out to the East and screwed up in the company car.

Practically each job I've had, something has happened. I'm either a clutz, not paying attention or just plain bad luck. Nothing has happened yet with this company that took over a few months ago (at least nothing work related - as I'm reminded of last nights shocking experience). I'm going to keep knocking on wood!