Well, I just can't stay out of the ER for long; this afternoon, I was looking for something under my desk, and managed to get a long sliver under my fingernail. (My floors are pine planks, and are over 100 years old now.) The end was visible under my nail—and the whole splinter was visible running the length of the nail bed—but I decided not to pull too hard, lest it break off.

I first went to the Northwell Health clinic a few blocks away on 8th street, but they had a sign posted that they were closing at 5 PM today and Sunday. A holiday weekend? That's when people are most likely to injure themselves!

So headed over to the ER at Beth Israel hospital, waited a bit, and noticed there weren't a lot of people there for a change; seems everyone was gone for the weekend. (It was about 8:30 PM by this time.)

It was a very simple job; the doctor injected my finger with Lidocaine® in a few places, to get me good and numb. He then made sure he had a good hold on the splinter; while I felt some pain, it wasn't bad, and I concentrated on holding still. It only took a few minutes, and he'd yanked a piece of wood at least a half-inch long—or a centimeter—out!

Strange thing, though; I had made a note of when I got my Tdap vaccination for the last crisis a few months ago. For some reason, my Calendar app doesn't want to hold onto these memories, and I couldn't find on my phone when it was done. My desktop does have a note I made of getting a tetanus booster in 2015, though; so maybe I never noted when I got my Tdap—more likely, I noted it on the phone but didn't also mark it on the desktop calendar.

In the ER, they took my word for it when I said I'd gotten it a few months ago—I'm pretty sure it was in the winter—and didn't prescribe any antibiotics, fortunately. (I mentioned I just had a course of antibiotics a month or so ago, for oral surgery.)

Time for bed; it's almost 3 AM, so I hope the melatonin kicks in soon.