Sorry I have been absent the past two days, things always come up when I try to blog. Last weekend I participated in an orienteering event and the picture above is of me at point 32. You ask why am I taking a picture of myself at point 32? It is because someone stole the puncher so to prove we made it to the point I took a picture of me there. Anything for points. The day was going good and we had a goal of making it to the furthest point on the map and also the most valuable point of all, point 75 which was worth 30 points. On our way from 75 to 72 I get a phone call on my phone letting me know we had a youth at the health lodge that took a spill and had gashed his leg about four inches long.
Now I am one to always assume the best and brush off the worst. The medical people were telling me the youth was OK but they thought that I might want to take him to town for a paid medical professional to look at it and see if it needed stitches. I asked the medical person if they thought he needed stitches because I was a solid hour from him and a rush back for nothing was going to put my diabetes into a bad mood. The medical professional kind of him-hawed around and I finally asked him if this was his youth would you take him to get a professional to look at it. His response was "oh yeah I would for sure take my child in if they had this kind of cut." Well that was all I needed to hear because I am a diabetic, an accountant, scout leader, but I am not a doctor so when he said he would take him in that was exactly what I was going to do.
The medic sent a car for me and another leader and we took the youth into town where he received 10 solid stitches. The physicians assistant let us know that it was a good thing we brought the youth in because this was a really nasty cut and they still had lots of gravel to clean out of the wound. In the end this entire thing was no big deal to me and the youth was bandaged and we drove them to a meeting point for their parents to take them home. There is no reason to stay in the woods when you have a freshly sewn up wound. I am not sure if being diabetic so long that I pretty much knew what the medical professionals were going to do and needed to do but I guess having a disease can prepare you for other medical events.
One thing that this event brought to my mind is that my old scout leader always kept a suture kit on campouts just in case something happens like this even further in the back country. What a coincidence this was because he was actually at this event with me and once I arrived back to camp I hung out with him and I told him the story. Once I finished telling him all that happened he went to his tent and pulled out his old suture kit that even to this day he still keeps on campouts. We looked it over and made sure it was still all there.
In the side pockets I pulled out several scalpels that were in sealed bags to keep them sanitary and then came across this polyester fiber suture thingie. This thing must be 25 years old but just seeing how prepared my old scout leader is to this day made me think about going out and getting a suture kit for myself.
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