Splinters

Ok - a bit of an oddball post here this morning - but bear with me 🙂

Over the weekend, I was at a gathering at a friend’s house. While walking on their wood deck, I stepped on a broken piece of wood and felt a splinter embed itself into my heel. The pain factor was off the charts, and the splinter felt HUGE and DEEP. The spouse tried to get it out with tweezers and only succeeded in breaking off the part that was visible; the rest remained deep in my foot. The pain was bad enough that I immediately went the next morning to the Urgent Care Clinic run by our local regional hospital (full disclosure: I was the COO of this hospital for about 5 years).

The Nurse Practitioner who handled my issue first attempted to give me a numbing shot, but the bottom of my foot was so sensitive that I couldn’t take the pain. So, we did it the old fashioned way - no anesthetic, me grimacing, sweating, and swearing (yes - I cursed profusely) while she dug deep (I had visions of the old west and the NP plying me with alcohol and having me bite down on my knife while she went to work). At some point, she called in another nurse to help hold things open so she could dig even deeper. After what seemed like an eternity, the NP was able to extract the splinter in one piece. It was so big she put it in a plastic container so I could take it home to show the spouse.

I live in a rural part of the intermountain west. Our hospital is one of the nerve centers of the community. The Urgent Care is open 7 days a week. The staff at the Urgent Care is professional, well-trained and compassionate. All joking aside, I ran the risk of significant infection if I had not been able to receive care in a timely manner.

The Republicans’ insane bill that cuts Medicaid (and, yes, Medicare, even though they won’t tell you that) will decimate rural hospitals who depend on that revenue stream. Not only with this mean lost jobs and community vibrancy, it will result in minor problems like splinters morphing into major - yet preventable and unnecessary - medical issues, increasing costs and negatively impacting people’s health.

The lack of empathy, caring and understanding of the social compact from Republicans in the House and Senate is appalling and disgusting.