Tuesday, August 16, 2016

I Looked It Up on YouTube

YouTube has been great when it comes to diagnosing and repairing the car.  It always amazes me that folks are willing to impart their knowledge of the obscure every day solutions.  It finally came down to figuring out how to remove my wedding ring from my overgrown knuckle.  One would think that losing 30lbs would reduce the size of the finger.  While I have gained senior skin that tends to drape from my skeletal structure, the fat around the ring finger has not diminished.

The nurse tried in vain to remove the ring before my heart surgery.  She finally gave up. Something about metal and surgery don't mesh well.  This time the surgical staff didn't even to make an attempt and insulated it with tape.  Thoughts of my ring shorting out a surgical tool through a bolt of static charge in the middle of the procedure came to mind.  I finally looked it up on you tube.

I had the choice between the Windex (original blue formula with Amonia D) soaking of the finger and the technique of unwinding a ribbon tied tightly around the ring finger.  Both seemed feasible and easy.  Being the engineer (by the way, nurses for some reason know when they are dealing with engineers) I decided to try method B.  After numerous attempts using different types of materials, I decided soaking the finger in chemicals didn't sound so bad after all.  So much for empirical experimentation.

OK, since both failed, and a few phone calls to local jewelers on their capability to cut off the ring and the cost to repair seemed a bit.......   destructive.  It didn't seem quite right to saw through a symbol of our eternal love, while sweeping up the left over shavings.

Desperation (vs. logic) sometimes results in a simple solution.  I did both.  I pre soaked the finger and borrowed a wider ribbon from Gayle's craft stash.  The ring indentation in the circumference of my finger is still visible and we won't  mention the farmer type tan it left behind.

Why the story of removing the wedding ring?  I'm not comfortable without it.  I am finding it difficult to resolve my feelings of starting Chemo without it on my finger.

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