Ouch.

Whacking yourself with an axe is like whacking yourself with a hammer and a relatively dull knife at the same time, the best of both worlds.  Glad everything held together for you.

Happy you met up with some great care, starkers old mate, and I'm glad you didn't have to give them the finger...wait...that doesn't sound right. 

Of course, we knew all about it from the telly...

Hoping for a quick recovery, Mark!  

It wasn't all that painful when it first happened.  It hurt most after the local anaesthetic wore off after surgery... luckily I had some Oxycodone to ease the pain.  Only needed two of them, one on the first night after surgery and one the next morning.  Now I just use Ibuprophin when necessary

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Quoting Jafo,

reply 2

I managed to cut off [almost] the end of my left thumb....with a tenon saw....went to a plastic surgeon expecting some whiz-bang stitching etc ...all he did was look at it and say "are you allergic to band-aids?" ...

I was fortunate to have a really good surgeon who had a good bedside manner and took the time to explain the procedure to me.  I wanted to watch and told him that I'm not squeamish, but they covered everything up and I couldn't see or feel a thing.  Oh well, it all turned out okay and I'm grateful to those who cared for me.  Oh, and I didn't get stitches, either.  My whole thumb is in a bandage that has a plaster back-slab to reduce movement and the surgeon explained that because it was a clean wound it would heal well within the dressing

Yeah, the care was top notch, and given that I generally don't like hospitals after spending so much time in them, this visit was a far better experience than I would normally expect.  The nursing staff was great, as were the support guys who wheel patients around when needing services in a different department.

Thanks for gladness, I appreciate it.  I think the worst injury I sustained from a power tool was a nail or staple stuck in my finger or thumb.

Luckily, no stitches with this one but I've had plenty in the past... each of the ops [5 of them] on my right hip/femur needed 40-plus stitches.  Since then I had an appendectomy that required around 50 - 60 stitches, though mostly internally after gangrene was discovered and all my insides had to be taken out and scrubbed clean to prevent a further infection.  I also had around 40-odd stitches in my right arm after a workplace accident.

With one of the ops on my right hip/femur I was brought to before they closed up so they could check with me for sensation in my lower leg.  Yup, there was my upper leg all open and I could see it.... didn't faze me one little bit.  As for surgeons not allowing patients to watch under a local, even if the patient says I'm not squeamish, it's more to do with patients having panic attacks and such.  Surgery can be quite brutal at times and surgeons believe it's best that patients do not witness it.