"Guys always say 'it's just a sprain' because this way they can avoid falling into the clutches of medical care."
"The guy mind does not believe in medical care. Guys will generally not seek treatment, for themselves or others, except in certain clear-cut situations, such as decapitation. And even then, guys are not going to be 100% certain. "Let's put his head back on with duct tape and see if he can play a couple more innings", is the prevailing attitude.
There is a reason for this. If you are a guy, you have learned, the hard way, that when you get involved in a medical situation, even as a bystander, there is always a chance that a medical professional will suddenly, without warning, put on some rubber gloves and stick his hand up your butt, looking for a prostate. Most guys have no idea what a 'prostate' is, but they're pretty sure that if they had one up their butt, they'd already know about it."
Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys, pgs. 106, 99-100
Humorous, but we've all dealt with others, both personally and professionally, who think along the lines of Mr. Barry, and two come to mind off the top of my head.
Johnny June, a tech I worked with, father believed the same way as Mr. Barry- Johnny's father was "a guy". Johnny told me a story about a bicycle accident he had as a boy where he suffered quite a bad laceration to his forearm.
"I guess I probably needed stitches" Johnny said, "But my dad just wrapped it up with duct tape.". I asked Johnny what became of it. "Oh, it healed, no problem", was his reply.
Now, Johnny's dad was not some yokel- he was a well educated, respected pastor- and Dave Barry would say that he was, merely, "a guy".
The other, or I should say "others", who thought along the lines of being guys was my dad and his coworkers. My dad was a welder at a rock quarry and I remember back in the '60's him telling me that, if need be, they would pull each others' teeth.
"With what?!" I asked, in shock. "With a pair of pliers", my dad answered. "YOU WOULD PULL EACH OTHERS' TEETH WITH A PAIR OF PLIERS?! I repeated unbelieving.
"Well, with the tough ones to pull, we used vice grips"
As the saying goes, "Always use the right tool for the job".
Specializes in ER/School/Rural Nursing/Health Department.
My MIL swears by putting bacon grease on cuts and injuries.
We farm/ranch and a lot of our home remedies go between us and the animals. Like, I used silvidiene for a burn a cow got when someone poured her (ivermectin in an alcohol base for deworming poured over their back) and then used a hotshot to get her to move out of the chute causing her to catch fire. We use Makura honey for both us and the animals--it works really well for topical bacterial infections. Icthamal (a tarry looking concoction) will draw out a boil/abscess.
We use a lot of vet wrap (coban) on our kids (lots of great colors at least!). My husband swears by using superglue for cuts--usually if I'm not home to give advice. I also have a staple gun from our vet but none of my humans will let me use it on them!
My IV skills help a lot--I threw a 16 gauge into a cow's jugular to dump calcium gluconate into her when she got milk fever (they dump all their calcium into their milk at calving causing very low blood calcium levels).
Tobacco is used for calming stings, de-worming the goats and horses.
RuralMOSchoolRN, ADN, RN
96 Posts
My MIL swears by putting bacon grease on cuts and injuries.
We farm/ranch and a lot of our home remedies go between us and the animals. Like, I used silvidiene for a burn a cow got when someone poured her (ivermectin in an alcohol base for deworming poured over their back) and then used a hotshot to get her to move out of the chute causing her to catch fire. We use Makura honey for both us and the animals--it works really well for topical bacterial infections. Icthamal (a tarry looking concoction) will draw out a boil/abscess.
We use a lot of vet wrap (coban) on our kids (lots of great colors at least!). My husband swears by using superglue for cuts--usually if I'm not home to give advice. I also have a staple gun from our vet but none of my humans will let me use it on them!
My IV skills help a lot--I threw a 16 gauge into a cow's jugular to dump calcium gluconate into her when she got milk fever (they dump all their calcium into their milk at calving causing very low blood calcium levels).
Tobacco is used for calming stings, de-worming the goats and horses.