Impress me with your injuries.

[Kitsa]

The day my parents got their first computer is forever burned in my memory because of the burn on my hand. We were at a party at my dad's family's house, and they were never too cautious with fireworks (my grandfather used to have the little kids hold roman candles). I was helping to clean up afterward and a bunch of sparklers were stuck hot-end-down in mud to cool them. I grabbed the one that was hot-end-up.

Dear God that was some hideous pain. I had an enormous blister that completely covered my palm and puffed out with the flesh of each finger (with creases for the joints, since they didn't touch the sparkler).

Anyway, I remember the computer store people got ice for my hand from their back room because I was still crying hours later, after my parents left the party to go buy their first computer.

When I worked in the ER, a German exchange student was lighting firecrackers with his host family and noticed, after he lit an M-80 or something like that, that a bee had landed on him. He freaked out about the bee and forgot the firecracker, and blew his fingers off.

Can you imagine having to make that phone call to his family in Germany?

They sent us post-op pictures, once they pieced a hand back together for him. I think they used one of his big toes for the thumb. It didn't look anything like a hand, but it looked better than the lump of hamburger he came in with.