Arm & Forearm: Rifle: Lodged Deep

The round struck your upper arm bone square and stopped, and everything for an inch around it is gravel, lead, bone splinters and torn muscle packed into one ruined pocket. The doctor digs for an hour, lays down his forceps, and says the words nobody wants said: it may be the arm or it may be you, and the saw settles arguments like this one.

• Laudanum-deep and bedbound for 3 days
• The arm splinted and swollen, inspected hourly for red streaks
• Every dressing change a held-breath occasion
• /me surfaces from the laudanum asking, before anything else, if the arm is still on

Recovery 7 days under a doctor before the arm's verdict is in, untreated is gangrene and a bad end·Doctor, urgently

The round shattered a hand-span of your upper arm bone and stopped in the wreckage. The doctor took the lead first and then went back for the bone, splinter by splinter, laying each in the dish like a grim little harvest, the ones he missed will work their way to the skin for weeks.

• Arm splinted and bound to the body for 7 days, dead to all use
• The incision left part-open to drain and to give up stray splinters
• A deep tidal ache that peaks in the small hours

Recovery 7 days splinted and drained under care, without it, the arm sours around what stayed behind·Doctor, urgently

The round went in tumbling, end over end, and plowed a corkscrew track to rest deep against the artery's side of the bone. The extraction was a half-inch at a time, the doctor's ear close to the wound, listening as much as looking, one slip and the artery joins the conversation.

• Arm slung and strapped for 5-6 days, nothing moves but the fingers
• A curved silk-stitched incision down the inner arm
• A flinch when anyone reaches toward that side

Recovery 5-6 days slung with daily dressing, it could not have stayed where it lay·Doctor, urgently

The round buried its nose in your forearm bone and stuck like an axe in green wood. The doctor braced his knee against the table to work it loose, and the crack when it surrendered was worse than the shot, the bone held, but only just.

• Forearm splinted for 6-7 days, no grip, no gun, no rope
• The pry-point aching separate from the wound, a second grievance
• /me cradles the splinted forearm and goes pale recalling the sound it made

Recovery 6-7 days splinted with a doctor, and a bone that cracks proper if you use it too soon·Doctor, urgently

The round hid deep in the meat behind the bone, and the doctor hunted it for the better part of two hours, probe, forceps, rest, curse, and again. You memorized the water stain on his ceiling before it finally came free, misshapen as a chewed boot heel.

• The wound cut wider than the round ever was, stitched long
• Arm slung for 4 days
• Voice and grip both worn out from the table
• /me stares at the ceiling with the fixed attention of a man who has counted its cracks twice

Recovery 4 days slung and dressed, 6-7 and a fever without the digging·Doctor required

Five times the steel probe went hunting down the track and five times it came back empty before the sixth found lead. Each pass burned worse than the shot; the doctor called your language educational.

• The track inflamed from the searching, hot and tender for 3 days
• Arm slung for 3-4 days
• A low fever the first night, sweated out by morning

Recovery 3-4 days of dressing with care, 6 septic ones if the lead had stayed lost·Doctor required

The round sat too deep and too near the nerve for a gritted-teeth job, so the doctor dripped chloroform onto a folded cloth and the world folded with it. You woke with a stitched arm, a jar holding the round, and no memory of the middle part at all.

• Chloroform-sick for a day, green-gilled, off your feed, no saddle
• Incision stitched neat down the inner arm, slung for 3-4 days
• /me turns the little jar in the light, watching the round roll over its own label

Recovery 3-4 days slung, plus a green day for the chloroform, kinder than the alternative by a country mile·Doctor required

The probe found it fast but the round was seated firm, and every touch of steel on lead made a grating you felt in your back teeth. Out at last with a jerk that lifted you off the table an inch and set the lamp swinging.

• Wound packed and draining for 3 days
• Arm slung for 3 days, no load
• A thumbprint bruise where the forceps braced

Recovery 3 days of packing and clean dressings, 5-6 hotter ones without the extraction·Doctor required

Fired from long range, the round arrived tired and buried only knuckle-deep in the meat of your upper arm. The doctor pinned it on the second probe and drew it out slow, whole and barely mushroomed.

• Sling for 2-3 days
• An ache raising the arm for 3 days
• A stitched slit riding over the entry hole

Recovery 2-3 days slung and dressed, 4-5 if pried at with a pocketknife instead·Doctor advised

The round sat awkward-deep, so rather than tunnel after it the doctor made one straight cut down to the lead and lifted it out clean. More scar than wound when it is all counted, but the counting went quick.

• A straight stitched cut, tender for 3 days
• Nothing heavier than a coffee pot for 2 days
• A scar line neat enough to look surgical, because it is

Recovery 3 days minding the stitches, 4-5 without care·Doctor advised

The round slid into the seam between two muscles of the forearm and stopped there without tearing either. The doctor followed the seam with a finger, cussed at his own good luck for once, and delivered it like a calf.

• Forearm stiff for 2-3 days, grip at three-quarters
• Wrapped wrist to elbow for 2 days
• /me works the fist open and shut, testing the seam where the lead slept

Recovery 2-3 days wrapped, 4 without, luckier inside than it looked outside·Doctor advised

A dozen shallow probes, one stubborn round, and a doctor who refused to be beaten before supper. It came free at last with a click into the dish, and the two of you stared at it with real hatred.

• Arm slung for 2 days
• Wound tender from the long hunt for 3 days
• No gun or rope work for 2-3 days

Recovery 2-3 days slung and washed, 4-5 if it had been left to fester·Doctor advised

The round settled tight against the bone where the doctor's probing did more harm than its sitting, and he made the old call: leave it. It will set to aching ahead of every storm, a little lead weather-vane sunk in your arm.

• A deep dull ache for 3 days as the track closes
• Stiffness ahead of every turn in the weather
• An entry scar with lead beneath and no exit to answer it

Recovery 3 days of soreness while the pocket seals with care, 5 without, the round rides rent-free now·Doctor advised

Spent through brush and distance, the round barely dug its own length into your forearm. The doctor lifted it out with tweezers and a tilt of the wrist, quick as pulling a splinter.

• A small drawn wound under a plaster for 2 days
• A bruise wider than the hole
• Sore to a firm handshake for 2 days

Recovery 2 days plastered, 3 without, it wanted out more than it wanted in·No doctor needed

You could feel the round under the skin of your arm like a pebble in a boot, and the doctor pried it loose through a nick no wider than his thumbnail. It rang in the dish and you both pretended you had not flinched.

• A thumbnail nick under a plaster, tender for 1-2 days
• The round smooth enough to live in a vest pocket
• /me flinches at the clink of metal in a dish, then laughs it off

Recovery A day or two either way, wash it and wear long sleeves·No doctor needed

The round came off a ricochet with half its fire gone and sank only skin-deep into the back of your arm. Out it came with fingers and a wince, warm to the touch and flat on one side where it kissed the rock.

• A shallow scrape-wound for 1-2 days
• The flat-sided round kept as a watch-pocket charm
• A bruise coloring up prettier each day

Recovery A day or two, treated or not, the rock took the worst of it·No doctor needed

Spent nearly to nothing, the round lodged in the skin itself, a lump you could roll under a thumb. One pinch and a squeeze and it was out, leaving a bruise and a hole hardly worth the word.

• A pea-sized scab for a day
• A thumb-sized bruise around it
• A new habit of rubbing the spot where the lump sat

Recovery A day either way, the bruise outstays the wound·No doctor needed

The round arrived so spent it slid under the loose skin of your forearm and stopped without cutting muscle at all, rolling like a bead in a hem. You worked it back out the way it came in one slow, horrible, fascinating minute.

• A single small nick, plastered for a day
• Goosebumps every time you tell it, and you tell it plenty
• The round unmarked, round as minted

Recovery A day of tenderness, you already did the surgery yourself·No doctor needed

Lodged loose in the very surface of your arm, the round hung on through the ride to town and then dropped out into your sleeve when you peeled off the coat. There is a burn-rimmed nick where it sat and an ounce of lead in your cuff as evidence.

• A burn-rimmed nick, sore for a day
• The sleeve stained and strangely cherished
• You shake the cuff out over a table for anyone who asks

Recovery A day, treated or not, it discharged itself from care·No doctor needed

The round came through a wagon board first and arrived with just enough left to bury itself in the rolled coat over your forearm, its nose stopping against your skin like a cold fingertip. You cut it from the wool at the bar and stood it upright on the counter, and nobody paid for their own whiskey after that.

• A cold-fingertip bruise, gone in a day
• A coat sleeve with a bullet hole you refuse to patch
• /me stands the spent round on its flat end atop the bar, beside the hole in the coat

Recovery Nothing to heal, the wagon board and the coat split the bill·No doctor needed