Splinter Cell

Troy and I were out playing in the backyard today, enjoying the nice weather...well, Troy was playing, and I was cutting back dead plants that didn’t make it through the freeze. All of a sudden, he came up to me, calm and quiet, held his hand out and said, “booboo.” I said, “okay, let me see your booboo.” Usually, his booboos are nothing, he bumped his hand a little too hard with something, or he just wants attention. But today, it was something. He had three large, long splinters embedded in his finger. I’m guessing that they came off the stick that he was playing with. Two were barely in, and I was able to pull them out with my fingers. But the third was completely under the skin.

I took him inside and engaged the extra services of my wife to assist. While she held his finger straight, I had to push the splinter with my fingernail to slide it enough so that the head poked out of his skin. And then while I held it like that, my wife quickly grabbed the tweezers and pulled it the rest of the way out.

Now, while Troy had been calm and quiet outside, he was the exact opposite inside. He was screaming and crying the whole time we operated on him. Even after it was over, he wouldn’t stop. Although, I’m sure the alcohol we put on his finger didn’t help much. We finished him off with an Olaf bandage, which he immediately took to trying to remove, crying the entire time until he’d finally managed to rip it off. Then, he was suddenly okay. I’m just thankful it was an easy operation and not one that required us to have to use a needle to break the skin. I’m not sure how we would have kept him still long enough for that.