Rest

[Jeff]

Today, I am making a point to rest. For the last 3 weeks I have been going at building a tractor shed. Election day, I got up and went to the woods, to cut a log out of a downed tree, found a way to get the 12ft log to the mill to cut my end wall purlins.

I then put a scope on and sighted in Wildflower's .30-06 so I had something that can shoot over 100 yrds efficiently.

Apparently the shooting was a trigger for Sawyer's seizure disorder. He had 7 before morning, and we couldn't control them. Tammy left for the vet at 5am and was home and there by 9.  I spent the day sick. I'm guessing stress. I then got stupid. I'm not one to sit around, it just aint in me. So I forced myself outside to work.  I picked up the chainsaw, and warmed it up. No chaps. Then, without thinking, let it come to rest on my thigh.

Thank goodness I had a bottle of nasal spray in my pocket.  Yea, today I rest at the cabin and Tammy and the dogs will rest at the Troll home today too. No saws.


 

[barbender]

I've did that one before too, Jeff. Cut the same spot on my pants. You'd think a guy would be more careful with a spinning chain in the vicinity😬

I often catch a cold or something when I'm going full tilt. The body needs the rest and relief from stress to repair itself. We should have a gauge on us like the new cordless tool batteries🤷‍♂️

[Jeff]

So, now I am contemplating the best place for such a button!

[Southside]

Isn't Musk trying to do something like that? 

[Walnut Beast]

Glad you didn't get nailed! That's easy to do especially when you lift your leg up and over a log with the saw held up resting against you. Because your leg gets parallel under the saw.  I got lucky like that! It just caught the sweatpants. It sure makes you think how lucky you were!!!

[B.C.C. Lapp]

No good comes of doing dangerous work when your tired.   I remember a forestry safety class I attended and the guy told us most accidents happen in the hour after lunch and the last hour of the day. Cause we are tired.    Glad your not showing us your brand new scar Jeff.    Just patch them pants and let the patch be a reminder to ya.

[YellowHammer]

Sometime the hardest thing to do is also the smartest - stop and take a break.  You've already started, so 

I'm glad the hit wasn't worse.  

[thecfarm]

We all do it!! And we all know better.
Sorry to hear about The Dog.  :(

[Magicman]

I was working alone and noticed change/coins lying on top of the dirt/dust in the trail.  Thinking that someone was playing a trick on me I started looking around for the perpetrator.  Nope I was alone, and then I noticed the front of my jean leg gnawed off including the outside of my pocket. 

My saw, my leg, and my coins and never knew when it happened.  : 

[doc henderson]

i did that on the opposite side.  let off the trigger and let go with the right hand and the saw swung around and just as the chain was about to stop, it just touched the area of my L thigh and took out the superficial threads.  good lesson to learn without the actual injury to go along with it.

[SwampDonkey]

One of my rules cutting my firewood, 'done by noon'. :D It's not just the knocking down of the trees, it's bucking and gathering it up, and tossing limbs off the trail. Just the way it is when you haven't got $$million equipment. 4 x the work. :D

[doc henderson]

In my profession, it has been tradition to work unusual and long hours.  The idea that you could be "just too tired" to respond to a medical issue was not considered.  It does push the boundaries of what you think you can do, so you can push through to an extent.  There are times and places where you are the only qualified person.  Times are changing.  now docs want a better home and family life.  time to travel or just be at home.  we now have Hospitalists, and dedicated ER docs.  Your primary doc has little to nothing to do with any serious illness or hospitalization.  Covid has pushed many to the brink, me included.  Many do not work for a small group of docs but have been bought up by huge corporations or University hospital groups.  Now some young APPs say "my shift is over at nine, sorry you are so busy"!  and go home.  It has become standard to have all hospitals in a 3-hour radius be on diversion, and our hospital is over run.  have 10 people in the waiting room and 8 people admitted to the hospital but stuck in the ED waiting for someone to go home on the floor so they can move up into the hospital.  Lots of docs and nurses have quit to retire or change professions.  Now we have a shortage.  Many clinics tell their patients to just go to the ED.  This rant is not a complaint.  At my age, I can have a week off, and I am still tired when I go back to work.  Burnt out.  so, there is short term tired and long term.  the later can affect attitude.  It is documented that medical folks tend to take a path of least resistance at the end of a shift.  so, we are trained to check ourselves about our decisions.  With covid, we had to tell all sorts of people to go home and not admit everyone to the hospital.  Older folks just cannot believe that you would send them home when they are sick.  the new standard for admission is there has to be something to do that can only be done in the hospital.  We are still so busy across the country (full relative to staffing) and hospital systems are losing money hand over fist.  We still try to do a great job, but it is relative to conditions on the ground, and for sure not like it used to be.  We do not get to make decisions about how busy we are in the ED.  some people leave, and they are not only the ones that did not need to be there.  At the volumes we are seeing, you cannot emotionally afford to be upset about all the unhappy people.  then it seems to people that you just do not care.  You can't anymore.  I thought about erasing all of this.  please read it in the spirit intended.  We keep on doing the impossible, and many people appreciate it.  Blessed Veterans Day.  and "that is all I have to say about that" Forest Gump!  

[kantuckid]

As we age we certainly need to know how to "pick our parties", so to speak. Jeff, count yer blessings and take a break. 
 My various age- and work-related maladies can get in my way some days and I try to have sense enough to know when to let them. Todays a rainout day and candidly said, it's a best case senario for me and my body.  
A man my age, whom we both knew well and worked with & now deceased, once found a way to cut to the bone in his thigh with a chainsaw doing his firewood. Larry got healed up and never ran a saw again. 
 One of my partial solutions to the chainsaw dilemma is that I no longer own a logger sized saw, my Stihl 170 is my daily log building choice this summer and my MS241 is my larger limit choice of saws.
 No big boy saws for this old fart. 

[bigblockyeti]

Doc, thanks for posting.  My family (extended and immediate) are for the most part very healthy, but I realize that's not everyone's reality.  I really feel for those with long term illnesses where hospital visits and often stays are just a part of life.  When we were able to finally visit family in Ohio after covid started throttling down we got to a few friends as well, some docs & nurses.  They all looked stressed, the docs were contemplating career changes (those not still buried under enormous med school tuition loans) and the nurses had their pick of where they wanted to work.  Many places had seen an average RN pay of between $30-$35/hr (in 2019) nearly double and the Cleveland Clinic was offering some still fairly green nurses $80/hr (2021) to commit to a 60hr work week for 12 weeks.  Earlier this year I had three steroid shots in my middle ear, 2-2.5 minutes with the doc each time, over $1,100 each of the three times after insurance adjustment.  Things are insane and don't look to be getting particularly better any time soon.  Thank you and all the healthcare providers for the work you do!!

[Ianab]

Doc, unfortunately what you describe isn't limited to the US medical system. NZ hospitals are also getting pushed, although their funding model is quite different. They did struggle over the past Winter with high patient numbers and staff shortages / sickness. Like there were radio adverts running, "Save ED for the folks that REALLY need it. Call the toll free Healthline, see your pharmacist or visit a walk in clinic". At least that way they could get competent medical advice and be told if they actually needed ED, or some paracetamol and a couple of days rest. Basically a "Pre-ED Triage"


Unfortunately there is no Quick Fix, it takes years to train even a junior Dr or nurse, and you can't hire them from overseas as they are in short supply there as well.  :-\

It's also worth noting that many safety critical jobs have strict work and rest hours legally mandated. Think airline pilots and truck drivers etc. A fatigue induced "brain fart" on their part can be a disaster. But mistakes made on pretty much any job can have consequences. 

[kantuckid]

This rural, very poor county we live in in E KY we came to by a work related accident in 1975. Since that time a doctor has never lived here except one young doc I knew personally from civic club stuff. He stayed part of a year then left. 
We have no doctor who even comes here via our regional hospital except recently got a couple days a week doc, every other week.
Next door to that clinic is one occasional doc who owns his own clinic here and 3 other small spots. I think he's from Pakistan.
The dentist they had who was supposed to finish my oral surgeon done implants has now left and that regional hospital has one dentist who does only basic dentistry, no implants, etc.. We either see a PA or nurse practioner or travel a minimum of a 50 mile RT. Mostly I go a 3hr RT. 
Most doctors who do serve at that regional hospital want to live in a safe, small schools, rural environment, vs. a urban lifestyle. Bit they don't come here to my county and the hospital cannot find many that aren't newly graduated an mostly KY natives.

[Peter Drouin]

I start the day well and work hard, But, when I start to trip over stuff, I slow down and call [It's a day.]
With a chainsaw, I don't push it, might cut the trees, 5 or 6 of them down, pull to the landing and cut them up the next day.
I hate to fall with a chainsaw in my hand. Throwing a saw away while going down can be not good for the saw. ;D :D

[thecfarm]

Peter mentioned tripping.
Seem like I am doing more of that than 40 years ago. Also seem like I am picking myself up off the ground more too.

[SwampDonkey]

I learned a long time ago, just regular leather work boots will put me on the ground when cutting wood. Slippery wood, short rolly polly wood, slippery tree roots, you name it. Most of the trip'n is due to that stuff. That is why I put on my chaulk soled chainsaw boots and stay on my feet. ;D I haven't worn leather work boots working in the woods for years. They are OK walking my trails, but don't walk on spruce roots too much or the inevitable will happen. A trail in the woods where you use a SxS on will expose lots of stump roots. Those are the worst between the stump and a foot along a lateral root. Might as well be on clear ice. :D

[Jeff]

Rolly polly wood put me down late summer, wracked me up for 3 or 4 days. Went down instantly with my feet in the air landing on my shoulder


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[Peter Drouin]

I'm not slipping, I just don't pick my feet up at the end of the day. At that time, I have trip over a 1" rug in the house. :

[thecfarm]

Same here Peter.
My feet don't come up as high as they use too.  :(
I have learned to walk around things. A few extra steps is easier on the body than a sudden jolt when I fall.

[Ed_K]

 I'm scared to death of falling, the dr.'s say I could break bones real easy. So I wear my orange spiked boots if I go into the woods to work.

[Hilltop366]

I use my chain break a lot, before I set the running saw down, moving branches with the saw in one hand (left), walking with running saw... It becomes natural after a while but I still pick the saw up and try to cut with the brake on once in a while. :D 

A few years back I was limbing a spruce tree that had blown over in a bunch of raspberries bushes, I would cut a few limbs and then hold the saw by the top handle with my left hand below my waste and push my way ahead through the pickers. As I was pushing through the pickers (with the brake off) the chain was creeping and it picked a hole in my chaps on the left thigh and pulled a strip of the lining out and wrapped it around the crank shaft jamming the clutch drum on I looked down and noticed the chain turning and applied the brake but it stalled the engine. When I took the clutch off the string of chap lining had made a nice nylon washer around the crank shaft against the clutch drum.

[Peter Drouin]

Same here Peter.
My feet don't come up as high as they use too.  :(
I have learned to walk around things. A few extra steps is easier on the body than a sudden jolt when I fall.

At the end of the day, I guess I shuffle. :D :D :