THE BENEFIT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

A couple of years ago I was taking Clopidogrel, which is a prescription anti-clotting medication. And I managed to whack my hand so bad it bled. Life is always an adventure or sumpin', I am clinically minded and observant, and Facebook lets you share your best moments, whether it's a wise idea or not. And then reminds you of them a year or two later.
Exactly a multiple of 365 days after the fact.


MEMORY 1:
So. The wound on a right-hand digit from yesterday is still bleeding. Clopidogrel works. Which, I suppose, is good. It means [CUT] ... shaving and showering this morning (were) too dang interesting for words. There are now bloody paper towels in the garbage, and I found out that putting a sterile pad on an open wound really does require BOTH hands.


MEMORY 2:
Okay. Now we cut another sterile pad to size, prepare the tape (three strips), discard the blood soaked previous pad, and apply the new one. After which, dammitall, I am going to have porkchops in Chinatown.


MEMORY 3:
Tomorrow should be "interesting". Still haven't stopped bleeding. On the third set of bandage/sterile pad right now. Last time I had a wound it took five days.


MEMORY 4:
This is starting to get interesting. Preparatory to final pipe smoke of the day (outside) I cleaned the area around the wound and put another dressing on it. Sterile pad, a few layers of stretchy bandage, everything held in place by strips of Nexcare flexible clear tape. Time to test two things: 1) will I accidentally set all this on fire when I light my pipe, and 2) will it hold all night?


What I also particularly recall is that the porkchops at the New Regent (新麗晶西餐廳) were excellent, and I enjoyed lunch immensely. The waitresses were a little bit leery, because white guys holding blood-drenched paper towels are, perhaps, disturbing, but they manfully brought me soup, garlic bread, and Hong Kong Milk Tea without flinching or commenting.

Smoked my pipe while strolling for a while afterwards.

At around four thirty I went to a bakery for some more HK milk tea, and TWO pastries.

The hand looked a biowaste dump on the end of my arm at that point.

Then I loaded up another pipe.

What I cannot remember is which pipes I had with me at the time. I vaguely seem to recall that it could have been the two shown here. It's really important, and I wish I had noted it down for future reference. Unfortunately I wasn't drawing my briars yet, that's been mostly a sanity maintenance strategy during this pandemic.

Probably a good thing I didn't encounter fans of Twilight or live vampires while strolling through Chinatown that day. They would have followed me around saying I smelled good.

Normally that would please me immensely, but I have issues with vampires.

It's ... complicated.



At some point I mentioned on FB that I was also taking another medicine, Amlodipine Besylate, and received a note from someone with no medical expertise but who knew a doctor that what had been prescribed by my physician was cheap stuff and dangerous, I should go back and insist on the Ferrari of medication, or else I would have a heart-attack.
I needed to demand First World Treatment!

My doctor and the clinic are Chinese.
And I am getting first world care.
They are professionals.



Of course, as you would expect from a stubborn old frass, I disregard their excellent advice anent tobacco use. Because it gives me much pleasure.

TOBACCO INDEX


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