WIL WHEATON dot NET: 1.5

I had a similar experience when I was about 12 and decided that it would be a good idea to "sharpen" a piece of glass by breaking it against a table a number of times. Needless to say, this activity ended with quite a lot of pain, after I cut the knuckle of my index finger pretty goddamn deep. That was a good call by young Sam right there...

Wil:

oooooohhhh...that's terrible!

That brought back similar a badddd memory for me. When I was a teen we had just finished the syrup in the syrup tin and my Dad said "you should wash that tin we can use it for something else!" Ha! Little did I know that the underside of the tin's rim also made a good cutting tool. Got my knuckle on my right pointy finger good it did, blood yup. on the floor yup. Fortunately my Sis new something about pressure points....yes, it does pay to mind one's fingers....

heal up soon!

I just threw up a little in my mouth.
9 yrs old and I did the same thing with a cat food tin...to feed a cat named Felix...yes, I was mamed by Felix the cat

Awww, poor baby! Hope your thumb gets better soon.

I've also done the same thing more than once on soup and chilli can lids. That jagged edge does a nice job of giving you a wicked laceration. And the throbbing, oh god the throbbing...

http://www.krupsusa.com/krups/All+Products/Can+Openers/Products/404-70/404-70.htm

Owie! Heal well.

just in case you were looking for more proof that you are a good writer: my thumbs hurt while reading this entry. Good job!

Holy Shnike! That's gonna leave a mark! -Tommy Boy

See my question is was the inside of your thumb wires and metal revealing your mechanical skeleton as to possibly risk your exposure to the human fools that dont know your true mission of serving the motherblog?!

Well your Lucky in one way Wil...

Atleast you can use more than Six-Fingers to type... I never learned how to properly and I barely ever use my thumbs... hehehe

Cheers...

Ouch!!!!!!
Sorry Wil. Hope you have a quick recovery.

Ouch I bet that smarts. LOL. Teach you to mess with a dog food lid right? Just kidding. Hope it gets better soon.

Moral of the story, young man... take the damn garbage out when it's full!

Get well soon. You've been writing some great stuff lately.

eeeeEEEEEEEeeeeee!!!!

Yeah, I did something somewhat similar a few years back. Suffice it to say, the words "stale baguette", "serrated knife", and "fileted index finger" pretty much sum it up.

Oh, yeah, and having to treat not only myself, but my neighbor, who nearly passed out when he saw it. (;

Please please please watch out of signs of infection. (esp. red radiating lines) Infections move so fast (even within hours). Both Frank Oz and Chris Reeve died from preventable infections. Todays infections that antibiotics no longer fight can mirate to weaker areas of your body.
Did you know that Patrick Swayze was within hours of losing his leg to amputation due to such an infection?

Its not about scaring you any more then putting batteries in your smoke detector means that you are terrified that your house is going to burn down. You are just acknowledging a reasonable potential reality and preparing to cope if it occurrs, quickly and efficiently.

I do this for a living, so PLEASE just move quickly if you see it. Please dont try to "tough guy - macho" it out. I can see you not bringing it to Anne's attention or brushing off her monotoring of it. These are dangerous times health wise. Thank you for considering this!

I usually put the can and sharp top in the recycling, thus avoiding this scenario. But now I'm not sure I should be putting the tops in there...

Feels better and use plenty of Neosporin!

Hey Wil...that hurts. Also, I feel your pain. About 4 or 5 years ago I was out in the garage sorting through stuff that was lying around. I grabbed a stack of sheet metal that needed to be some place else and kinda tossed it where I wanted it to be. Trouble was the edge of the stack of sheet metal also happened to be razor sharp. I wondered if people would be able to figure out why I wasn't home later that afternoon based on the trail of blood leading to the house and smeared on the doorknob. I have fond memories of my gauze swathed finger and the fact that I spent the entire drive to the hospital emergency room giving the world the glorified finger (elevate!). The scar on the middle finger of my left hand reminds me of it every day (not to mention the incomplete 'feeling' in a part of that finger due to nerve damage). Danger is fun!

Also...on a disapproving internet side note. What the hell are metal cans and lids doing in your trash? Is your heathen-city so godless as to no have recycling programs? Bad Wil! Bad! Stay on the Paper!

OUCH! sorry to hear it wil. i did something like that when I was eight years old. mom sent me out to clean out our car. i threw a bottle into the garbage bag I was toting and somehow didnt hear it shatter (inside the bag on hard pavement). when I exited the car, I stepped right on a shard of the glass and put a three inch slice in the bottom of my eight year-old foot. it was NOT fun and I bled a lot too.

hope you feel better soon!

#1 dog can lid rule: after putting the dog food in the bowl(s), put the lid INside the can, and if desired, crush the top of the can together. Just putting it in there greatly reduces the chances of an accident like you had. Crushing the top together prevents escape.

Not being snarky - I do feel sympathy/empathy (I get those confused sometimes) - but we all learn from our mistakes, but it's even better when we learn from others' mistakes, so I took this opportunity to post this rule we use at our house.

oh eep Wil. You need a Guinness. Or 6.

Awwwwwww poor you! Happens to the best of us!!!

Although seeing the inside of your thumb must have been pretty cool. But you'll probably only think that when it's all patched up and not hurting anymore.

Stupid itching. Don't let it control you! No matter what you do, don't take out the stitches. Or it'll seriously scar. lol BAD!

Unless you wanna be the token "scar on thumb" actor for random action movies. With one line.

LOL

//ramble

I feel your pain. Here are my photos of what I like to call "What not to do with a steak knife".
http://thebrokenjoystick.com/pictures/knife-thumb
I was using a sharp knife to try an dseparate two frozen hamburger patties.

We went to Emergency Care and he wanted to stitch it (I hate needles) but convinced him to use surgical glue (that's why it's shiny). Throbbed like a mofo too. My thumb is still tingly/numb after almost 3 years.

brian

OUCH!!
It's really amazing how much you use all of your fingers, thing is you dont realize it until something like that happens :(

Hopefully you will recover soon enough

-Dan

That sounds really bad. Reminds me of when my cousin broke his toe doing a martial arts kick barefoot - you could see the bone on that one. The reference to Locke last week seems perfectly appropriate too. I hope it gets better soon (and without infection).

WIL,
I hope your pain ends soon. Cutting trash sucks!

FG

Omg Kirimaku, you can't just say things like Frank Oz died, especially when he hasn't. I'm still all flushed and twitchy. Jim Henson is dead, but it was from pneumonia. Thank you for the small heart attack. EEK

ouch, dude.

Drink Lagavulin until the pain subsides.

Did you get stitches? I don't know too much about deep cuts, so if that is a stupid question, I apologize! Anyway, I hope your thumb heals quickly! :-)Take Care!

a) Get well soon! You need that thumb or else your hand turkeys will look all weird.

b)I'm allergic to tetanus shots (no, really. allergic.) so good luck with that and keep an eye on it.

c) Frank Oz will be somewhat dismayed to learn that he has passed away as he had stuff to do next week.

Ouch! I feel your pain. Last fall I ripped a fingernail off while trying to re-stack bricks around my compost pile, and promtly passed out (first time in my whole life) from "The Pain! The Pain!" (It just finished growing back, 6 months later).

Or, I could tell you about the time I used the pad of my thumb to catch a food processor blade that was falling off a shelf towards my head, cut it so deeply that I now know what the inside of my thumb looks like, nearly passed out while my hubby was trying to stop the bleeding in the bathroom sink, and then set my hair on fire from a lit candle on the back of the toilet tank. Yeah, that was quite a day. :)

I should have gotten stitches, and you probably should too from the description. :)

Oh Lord, I don't know why my dad decided to let his barely into elementary school daughter (me) borrow his sharp knife, but the huge bandage and amount of pain I was in was definitely a good way to teach me to be careful with knives (and always cut AWAY from your hand). At least it was way before our family had a computer. Otherwise I would have been even more traumatized.

blooflame is spot-on. I always put the lid inside the empty can and squeeze it reasonably shut.

Dunno how they do it in Pasadena... but about 15 mins. south of Wil, in Monterey Park, we've got city wide recyling done at the dump. [As well as H.B./F.V./C.M./Westminster in O.C.] So, no separate containers, sorting, forgetfulness, etc. Costs more to setup, but it creates some messy jobs for the sorters, and most importantly, nets the city 100% recycling participation from all it's curbeside service.

Holy shit! Forgive me for sounding like a stupid teenybopper, but I was so in love with you when I was 10 years old. ST:TNG is one of my all-time favorite shows. I can't believe I stumbled upon you on the net. That said--I did the exact same thing to my little finger four days ago. I thought I was going to bleed all over the place before my husband could bandage it. Hope your thumb is feeling better!

This reminds me of the time I was peeling potatos and, for some insane reason, I had my index finger resting at the top of it and when I peeled...some skin went with it. The worse part of it all, if you can believe, was that the skin didn't really come off and it wasn't bad enough for stitches so it was just...flapping there. So disgusting.

Hope you get better soon. May I suggest some sort of pain killer for the throbbing. Scotch perhaps?

Yikes! I'll just say that I've got some good scars from random stupid stuff myself, so I do indeed feel your pain. Hope it gets better soon, and you don't suffer any long-lasting effects.

And hey, make Anne run to 7-11 or something and get you a teddy bear and flowers. ;)

Best recovery wishes from Paris, France, where I've just finished "Just A Geek" and enjoyed it a lot.

You know have one more fan ;)

Heal well Wil.

LOL ! One more fan who should awake more before posting. Of course you should have read "You now have one more fan".

Sorry for my outrrrrageous accent :D

Here's a little trick that my Mom taught me to ensure that I'd NEVER get my fingers or hands sliced by a dreaded can lid:

After you open whatever happens to be in that can, empty the contents and then place the lid back inside the can and then crush the can.

That trick has saved me from cutting myself when I'm compacting the contents of my trash can/recylcling bin for my entire life.

Learn it, live it, and for Pete's sakes, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT ever place a can lid in your trash can or recycling bin without using my Mom's helpful little trick ever again!

That being said, just make sure you keep your wound clean so you don't get an infection. Writers tend to need all of their digits intact, after all.

Ouch! Take care of that cut! Don't forget the Neosporin when you change your bandage. (Helped my mom heal when she had an odd cut under her baby toe that required two stitches.) Typing may be a bitch, but giving the "thumbs up" is ever more emphasized now. :D Sending healing mojo your way!

Stone tha crows, you poor thing!!!!

Speedy recovery, Wil - ya poor sod!

Least you didn't get stitches :) Remember, chicks dig scars... apparently :D

Oh ouch! The good news is, if you're like me, by tomorrow you'll have forgotten all about the pain in your thumb because of the effects from the tetanus shot. Fever, achy joints, the works. Lots of fun.

Good job!

*gives thumbs up*
*then realizes how insensitive that would be*

Ick, nasty. And tetanus shots, even nastier in my experience.

Heal well!

I feel for you man. When I was seven I my cat jumped up onto my arms as I was opening a can of cat food and I cut two of my fingers down to the bone. I can still admire the scars the stitches left right now.

Oh why couldn't it have been like that time in TNG:Hollow Pursuits where Troi said "I am the Goddess of Empathy! Cast off your inhibitions, and embrace love, truth, joy!"

Anyways, I had a nasty vision that your where smashing the garbage with your foot and had plunged the lid deep, until I finished reading the sentance.

Take care.

Yah...been there. It hurts like a bitch huh?

A couple of years ago, my mom and I were moving and I was cleaning out one of the drawers in her computer desk. She used it to throw her loose change into so I was scooping out handfuls and putting them into some sort of something resembling a container.

I felt a sting. I looked down and the first thing I noticed was the bright red spurt that shot across the drawer, landing on many pennies along the way. Someone of brilliant intellect had stuck a razor blade in the drawer, and of course being the drawer was full of shiny metal objects anyway, I didn't see it. Sliced the side of my right index finger right down the side along the nail.

Needless to say, moving day got put off for a bit, we went to urgent care and they couldn't stitch it because of how close it was to the nail so they just sort of smooshed the lose part back to the rest of my finger and wrapped it to 3 times its normal size.

Not for nothin', but you think it's hard typing with a wounded thumb, try doing it with a 3 sizes too big index finger. I got really good at just sort of holding it up in the air and doing all the index finger typing with my middle finger. It got mighty strong :P

I'm trying to remember what I did to help with the throbbing that comes because of the circulation but it's been about 8 years so I can't. But I have a lovely scar and of course the memories. I hope it feels better soon :)

OK, time for a new nickname:

Wil "Nine Fingers" Wheaton
or
Wil "Butteryfly Sutures" Wheaton
or
Wil "Dogfood" Wheaton
or
Wil "Pain Pain" Wheaton
or
Wil "Blood on the Keyboard" Wheaton
or...?

When I was about 12, some friends and I thought it would be fun to walk down a piece of upright corrugated metal that used to be a roof. It had a 2x4 nailed in the middle of it, perfect for holding on the top of the metal and walking down the board. Unfortunately, it had just finished raining and the board was a bit slippery. I nearly lost the pinky finger of my left hand.

Oh, mighty King of the Geeks ... don't look at this as a setback, look at it as an opportunity! An opportunity to buy more geeky technology! It's time to test out some voice activated software, new mics and stuff like that!

*laughs*

Feel better soon.

I once did this to my thumb with a plastic spork...yep, a spork cut me so deep I still have a fairly macho looking scar. When I did it I must have stared in dumb shock for several minutes trying to understand that the spork somehow really did slice me open and leave me gushing. I think my roommate walked in and found me watching my thumb drain itself on the kitchen floor with the sink 2 feet away -- and even more mystifying...why did we have plastic sporks in our kitchen, and why was I eating with one?

Good way to sleep without your finger falling off from the pain? Elevate it. It can be as simple as lying on your back with your hand resting on your chest. It'll still hurt like a mofo, but not wake-up-from-the-pain hurt.

Well, Wil, I would feel sorry for you, but I'm too busy being annoyed at the Lost spoiler. SOME OF US ARE STUCK IN THE UK AND STILL ON SEASON ONE, DUDE!

*shakes head* And after your plea for no spoilers the other day... I thought I was safe!

;)

Feel better soon!

I don't remember Counselor Troi's "Pain, Pain" line, but I DO remember the 9,357 times she said "He's hiding something."

Seriously...that sucks. I did the same thing back in my fast food days...only I was cleaning a knife and promptly sliced the bottom of my thumb. Nearly lobbed it clean off! I still don't have any feeling in that thumb to this day, and it was over 10 years ago.

Ack!

As if my own personal memories of extreme pain and injury weren't enough, there are about 53 others to read here... I jumped to the end after about 5. I'm glad we're all still alive to talk about it. No Darwin Award winners here (yet).

Get well soon, Wil.

See, now, I opted for the "slice off your finger rather than slice off a piece of onion" route, myself, last night.

And, when I say "slice off your finger" I mean "slice into your finger." I still have all ten fingers (and toes).

Perhaps we bloggers go for hand issues rather than leg issues (Locke) due to the nature of our online work--typing.

Locke being one with gifted legs and all of that. Hmmm...*grin*

So, wussy cut or not, these things hurt like Hades.

Feeling the kitchen accident pain right along with you...and hoping the shot wasn't too horrid!

ctofine

Oh God yes I cant believe I made that mistake! Jim Henson ('The Muppets') died of staph infection. You can
die of this stuff and this is the 'super-form' kind of like a new strain.
Cutting-edge staph.
LOL I was watching Star Wars and Yoda's fight is just so awesome,...

Anyway it is WONDERFUL Wil got this attended to, as well as the tetnus shot which should last him about ten years or so!

wil wheaton fark photoshop spotted.

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1996221

Oowww!! I hope it heals quickly.

For the pain, use Tea Tree Oil. It's a natural pain killer and anaseptic (spelling bad i know). A neighbor of mine used it (I applied it for her) after her dog bit her and she was able to walk on it. Might help. Can't hurt.

Cans..evil.

There are some people who voluntarily do what you did simply for the rush..

I guess you're not one of them!

If all else fails, just suck on it.

"...I figured that being able to take a rusty nail without fear until I'm forty-three years-old was good enough."

Dude, you should still fear rusty nails. Cause they hurt, no matter how many tetanus shots you've had.

Oy! My mom once sliced her finger in a nasty way with a razor-sharp can lid (bound for the recycling bin), and this reminded me of that. Both made me cringe. Eek!

All I heard from this post is that you guys are caught up on episodes of "Lost". Sorry to hear about your boo-boo.

Ugh. Thanks, Wil. Now MY thumb hurts.

Reminds me of when I cut my fingertip with a meat slicer when I worked for a deli during college. All I remember is my latex glove finger filling with blood, and having to tell a customer to "hold on a minute, I'm bleeding all over your braunschweiger."

Good times...

Aww, poor you. Finger-cuts do hurt like a bitch, though. And why do they have to bleed so much, anyway? 'S like head-wounds - all this fuss over nothing, over this pain over nothing. Ah, well. Made for a good story.

Hope you feel better soon. (And I never read the Lost spoiler, so you spared at least one person at least. Though I had probably already seen the episode, so...yeah, gonna stop trying to make you feel better now. =P)

Ouch.

Reminds me of the day in september some years ago when the husbandy guy cut his finger doing something around the house. We rushed him to the ER because it looked like it might have nicked a tendon and as a prof. musician, he didn't want to chance losing use of the hand. He walked in with his hand wrapped in wash rag, and lo and behold there were a dozen or so other guys there, hands wrapped in towels, etc., all weekend warriors who cut themselves on honeydo projects...

Keep it washed and dry, Wil... and don't push your hand in the wastebasket...

mojo to ya.

Libby:

I did that too! Except I wasn't working at the deli, just in the grocery store. I wanted to make myself a sammich and somebody had shown me how to use the slicer. I used my index finger (same one as with the razor blade incident later dammit!) as a guide on the meat (not in the demonstration!) and sliced the corner off.

I stood there for a good solid 2 seconds just staring down at it before it started bleeding and I was like...holy buckets! I gotta go! Owner's wife was working the office and decidedly unhappy :P

WIL - Dude I am so sorry about earlier.. Stupid me didn't check your blog.
Hope you feel better soon.. I know what pain is.. being cut open from a C-section, and once as a kid having your entire thumbnail ripped off and blood just spurting everywhere , and then falling off the monkey bars flat on your face onto a bunch of sharp jagged rocks as they get all embedded in your face with more blood spurting everywhere. I FEEL YA DOG!
BE SAFE!

I have a sticker on my bulletin board that says I'm my eye Dr.'s star patient. I've had it for years. If I recall correctly, the way I got it was by seeing it and saying "OOOOH! Can I have one of THOSE!!!" :) -I think I was in my late 20s at the time.

Did you use your left hand or right hand for that? lol. Sorry - I just had to say that. I did not read all of the comments before I started to make mine, so if somebody else already beat me to the chase and quoted 'Stand By Me', I apologize.

Hopefully you don't get some wacky infection from that cut. In high school, I got a really bizarre infection in one of my legs. It swelled (is that correct grammar? idk) and I was on crutches for a month. The doctors thought that I had a cut on my leg that got infected and caused my leg to go haywire. But no! No scrape, no scratch, no nothing! Still to this day, nobody knows what infection I had and how it got there! Whatever it was, I only wish it on my worst enemy. It was a bad month.

Not long after it started, I found myself in the emergency room and a surgeon (brace yourself) had to drain my leg. Right before the procedure, the nurse said, "Oh! You need a tetanus shot! I'll get that for you!" And right after the surgeon was done working with my leg, the nurse gave me my tetanus shot.

Good grief. I was never in so much pain in one day in my whole life.

Get better! I hope I didn't freak you or anybody else out with my story.

Owowowowowowow!!!

Y'know, I've worked in restaurants for many years, and I even once peirced my hand with a Chef's knife (trying to pry apart to frozen burgers, the manager wrote stupidity as the cause for the accident, and I felt it was only right to sign it as such.) Few things compare to the pain of the lid from a can. They are sharp, but jagged, and even more jagged than you at first realize because there are all these little frayed bits along it.

Hope it heels up quick.
TTFN;
Tina

Owie!

I got one of those "Safety Can" can openers not too long after they came out, and that's how I avoid such horrible fates. They stop working so well after awhile, though. The one I'm using now isn't that brand, but it's the same principle.

If you ask Andrew (your editor, who was kind enough to take me to a football game in October when he had extra tickets) to bug me about it, I'll buy one, get it to Andrew, and he knows how to get stuff to you, right?

Oh, and my own last tetanus shot was from trying to clean the METAL drain-strainer for the kitchen sink by hand. I tossed that one once I got back from the doc's office and have only used plastic ones since. (Those will go through the dishwasher on the top rack OK, so I just rinse the worst of the crap off and do that when it really needs cleaning.)

Hey Wil - sorry to hear about your injury, but ... hmmm .. that description is just begging for a picture! Can you post one? One with the pirate band-aid and one without ;) Hurry ... before it heals too much and we think you are a real wuss for such a tiny-already-healed-no-scar injury ;)

What a coincidence. I badly cut my index finger, in a similar but much stupider and more avoidable way.

A grease fire started under my stove burner, and I didn't have a fire extinguisher. But my apartment complex has one downstairs. Behind a glass door, which was locked. But there was a shard missing, so in my panic I figured I could pull off the rest in one sheet. I couldn't; another shard came off and it went through my fingertip like melted butter. So I ran upstairs without the extinguisher, to wash it off. It's a good thing the fire went out on its own, or I'd have had two emergencies to deal with.

I didn't even sleep on it; I actually called 911. The paramedics came, managed to remove the paper towel from my finger without pulling off that square inch of skin that was hanging on by a thread, and told me I'd need stitches. I then called a cab and went to an urgent care facility, where I got five stitches.

It's eight days later, and I still essentially have to type with nine fingers. That square inch of skin is dead, and I have no idea how long it'll take for that to heal.

I'm a bit self-conscious about my Frankenfinger, but that won't last. For my uncle is visiting, and the fingers on one of his hands never grew in at all. That'll make it difficult to complain.

Add me to the "cut by tin cans" club. I was carrying a bag of garbage and a tin can top came through and sliced my leg open to the bone. I will never forget actually seeing what my tibia looks like... After seeing that, I immediately went into shock, so I don't remember feeling any real pain. I still have a nasty scar to remember it by, though...

Wow - just seen the picture. You earn some sympathy points with that!
Ouch!

Ouch -- just got around to reading this post.

Been there, done that, and it ain't fun.

And can lids are just as dangerous in the recycling bin as in the trash.

Geez, we put a man on the moon and we still can't make a safer can lid