A ring cutter
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On Christmas day, I smacked my left ring finger on something and didn’t think anything about it until the next day, when I suddenly realized I couldn’t slide my wedding ring off my finger. The ring, in fact, was so tight against my finger that the area above it to the first knuckle looked malformed. So I started soaking the finger in ice water, hoping the swelling would go down at least enough for me to slide the ring off.
When the swelling seemed to be subsiding, I coated my finger in all types of slippery stuff – soap and shampoos, olive oil and creams. Nothing worked. I continued to soak it in ice water. Then when it seemed like I might be able to slide the ring off, I was getting out of the car with a bag of groceries and smacked the same finger on the door into the house.
It swelled again. I kept telling myself I should probably go to a jeweler and just get the ring cut off. It wasn’t, after all, my real wedding ring. My wedding band had come off in 2004 or so, when I slipped in our local grocery store and hit this same finger. That time, though, the swelling wasn’t bad and I was able to slide the ring off. Around this same time, Rob and I found silver rings in a catalog that we really liked; they had southwestern designs on them, like petroglyphs from an Anasazi cave. So we bought a matching pair and ever since, that was the ring I’d been wearing.
After my dad died, his wedding ring was returned to us by the Neptune Society, the organization that had handled his cremation. At the time of his death, his fingers were retaining so much water we couldn’t remove the ring. So when the ring arrived, Rob tried the ring on, it fit perfectly, and he’s been wearing it for the last eight years.
Yesterday, February 21, we were at the dog park, hanging with the regulars. Cassie, who owns border collie, Willow, and I were talking about how her boss – novelist Tami Hoag – has finally figured out who the murderer is in her long overdue new novel. Like many Geminis (she’s June 8, I’m June 7) Cassie’s hands move a lot when she talks and I happened to notice her ring finger.
It was terribly swollen, the knuckle at least four times the size of mine. When I commented on it, she held her hand out, palm upward, and I could see where the skin on her finger was in serious trouble. Worst trouble than the skin on my finger.
“Look,” I said, and showed her my finger.
Cassie just looked at me. “How weird is that? We need to get these suckers cut off.” Her ring is complex, a family heirloom that is actually three gold rings welded together. Mine is a simple silver ring from a catalog. I was able to turn my ring a little; hers was completely immobile and looked as if it was sinking into the skin and headed for bone.
Early the next morning, Cassie texted me. Karin, who owns the husky Codi, had told Cassie to go to the jeweler she uses. Cassie and I agreed to meet at 11:30 that morning and get our rings cut off. The woman behind the counter owns the place with her husband. She’s a chirpy little thing, and when we presented our swollen ring fingers, she looked up, her eyes wide. “Wow, both of you? This is weird.”
“Do you get many of these?” Cassie asked.
“Actually, yes, but mostly pregnant women who are retaining fluids.”
“Well, we’re well beyond that,” I told her.
She started to gather together her tools. “Uh, this doesn’t involve a saw, does it?” I asked.
“Nope. No saw. But there’ll be some discomfort.”
“You go first, Trish,” Cassie said quickly.
So I laid my hand flat against the counter, palm upward. The woman picked up a small tool that looked like a miniature can opener. A sort of saw, except that it’s turned manually. It sliced through the ring. Then she took two small pairs of pliers and worked the sliced ends away from each other. The relief was instantaneous. Blood flowed back through my finger.
Now it was Cassie’s turn. Her finger was badly swollen and the woman had to stop at one point and get a glass of ice water for her to plunge her finger into – numb it. Once she had sliced through the band, she had trouble pulling back the ends and called in the jeweler from the back room. He examined Cassie’s finger with a jeweler’s microscope, then looked up at her and said, “We’ll be talking about you for a long time to come. The skin has started to grow around the band.”
“Just get it off, okay?” Cassie said. “Please?”
“Trust me,” he said. “This is much easier than the emergency room.”
Then, after many winces and groans, her ring was off. The woman said we could come back in a few weeks, when the swelling had subsided, and have our rings resized. I call Rob and let him know our marriage is being resized. “Cool,” he said.
Cassie and I went to lunch and puzzled over the weird synchro. Two Geminis, two ring fingers. The message? Well, neither Cassie nor I rush to doctors for anything. We’re optimists who figure that ice water soaks and nature will fix the problem. What we learned is: Don’t procrastinate. It sounded sort of silly in this situation, but may be more relevant than we realize.
Hi Trish and Rob. Back in the UK and exhausted from the daily commute and work. thinking about how I’m not writing nor following things up. So I thought I’d look here, knowing I’d be sure to find a message. And there it was: “Don’t procrastinate”. Thank you both!
Yes, move ahead, Barb.
Thank you SO MUCH for this information! I too have a ring that needs to come off – I was 130 lbs when I was married and now weigh 210 so my finger has expanded a lot. I keep meaning to lose weight but that does not happen. I have been dreading a trip to the hospital to have it dealt with imaging all sorts of pain from having it sawed off. Really appreciated!
Avoid the hospital, that was the advice we got, Sharon. The jeweler’s tool is much simpler and the woman we went to did it for free. Good luck!
Removing jewelry prior to surgical procedures is a safety measure for several reasons. One is that the metal of jewelry can often interfere with instruments and machines used buring procedures. Also, in the distant past, there have been instances of a patient’s jewelry lost and then found INSIDE the patient. There’s also the chance for a not-so-nice medical person to remove a piece of jewelry from the patient, undetected. Lots of reasons, mostly, though, for safety. And, sometimes certain pieces can get in the way of the surgeon using particular instruments.
What painful stories, but alls well that ends well. I wear two rings – one on each hand – and never take them off (even when I had my kidney surgery and they wanted them removed, I insisted I kept them on and they were covered by sticky tape). After reading the post I wondered if they would still come off okay. One did, but I couldn’t get the wedding finger ring off! Hopefully just a temporarily swollen finger.
Why is it they always want people to remove jewelry before surgery? Temporarily swollen… nothing more!
Ditto on the “black hole” in the house! The really odd thing about hubby’s two missing rings is that he also has a third one that he wears on his right pinkie finger,
a small gold man’s ring with diamonds in it. He would take it off with the two that have vanished into the black hole. For whatever reason, the gold diamond ring was there where the other two should have been alongside it. Trickster must have liked the two that were taken but didn’t care for the one that was left, and THAT one is more valuable, money-wise, than the other two combined. Guess the Trickster must play poker with his Masonic brethren! This is a great post, guys, althogh the painful ring removal says ouch, especially Cassie’s ring actually growing into her skin. Love the dog park stories and the frequent synchros that occur there!
gee!!! what a story – stories, actually – for me, procrastination is not at the top of the layers list – at least in your case, trish – as cj says, the symbolism involved with this particular finger plus the fact you’d hit this same finger before – all that is top on the list to me – you all seem to have a real ring affinity in your family – thanks for sharing this really intriguing story!
Don’t procrastinate, yes. Another thought: In dream symbology and symbology generally, the left ring finger represents marriage and all that marriage entails. I have an intuitive sense that there’s a powerful message about your marriages in the circumstances. The message, however, would seem to be extremely positive, considering thast the rings simply refused to budge; refused to “come off” your fingers, which would indicate to me that the bonds between you and your spouses is a “forever” bond and can’t be destroyed without some kind of artifical assistance. Cassie’s ring was even growing into her body, and that seems soooooo significant in terms of a solid marriage with her husband. Not even looking at the synchros here, I think the situation was a very strong symbol of very strong marriage. Just my thoughts on the matter. 🙂 A similar but much less positive situation, several weeks ago my husband lost two rings. One is a “poker” ring with a card spread on it; the other is his Masonic ring. He only wore them when dressed up. Otherwise, he just wears his original wedding band on the appropriate finger. He always laid the two missing rings on top of his chest of drawers in our bedroom, but they weren’t there when he went to put them on. We’ve turned the house upside down, inside out, and same with the vehicles. No rings. And no one has been in the house except hubby and me and our puppy, who isn’t yet big enough to reach the top of the chest of drawers. I KNOW those two missing rings are a message. Just not sure what the message may be. Hubby remains extremely upset about the loss.
Cassie isn’t married, but is in a long term relationship. Hope your hub finds his rings! We have a black hole in this house where all sorts of things (including socks) hide out.
Maybe it is more about letting go. You both let go of the rings and felt better yet nothing really changed except the pain was gone!
Maybe so. I’ll have to ask her if stuff has changed for her. The no pain part of the equation was most welcome!
Cassie’s dilemma sound perfectly awful. And it’s a good thing you two talked about it and had something done before her ring actually became part of her! I do wonder what it means, and I think your idea about not procastinating is a good one. 🙂
No more procrastination with rings and swollen fingers, that’s for sure!