I lost my needle!

I lost my needle!

Have you ever lost a needle, a stapler pin, an awl pin or for that matter anything thin, small with a pointed end which could stick into something and stay stuck and hidden for ages?

This is only a simple question and has no spiritual or any other connotation.

One cool afternoon during my sojourn the week before last when I picked up my embroidery after a break, the needle was not there. I looked for it in the jumble of threads and in the orderly stacks. I picked up the fabric and dusted it in the air, but there was no ‘plink’ sound of the two-inch spike of carbon steel.

Now I was concerned. While travelling, I carry only one or two needles. In fact, for the sake of convenience and as a precautionary measure, even in my sewing box at home, I keep a small fixed number of needles.  

I looked carefully at the table, on the chair, on the carpet, on the wooden floor around it, passed my hand slowly over everything, hoping something sharp would stab my skin and bring out the evident micro-drop of blood. I did not remember if the two strands of Anchor No 56 were still threaded into it. I did not have a magnet with me, so I ran my phone with its magnetic cover all over the carpet but with no fruitful result. Slowly, I realized that I had lost the needle.

It brought alive my father’s warnings about sharp objects to my now worrying mind. He was extra cautious of needles being left here and there. His argument was they could go into the skin, move in the blood vessels, puncture and maybe damage a vital organ. (Mercifully, he did not warn us about infection or gangrene which could be caused by the pointy metal object if inside the human body. Perhaps he was convinced of our standards of cleanliness and hygiene.) For those who are still skeptical:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878540915000250

The Story of the Lost needle: Foreign body embolization of the heart

Brought up on this warning, one of the habits that I developed was to thread the needle into a piece of paper or into the project in the hoop, and put the work into a bag, pouch or bowl. In fact, I have been doing that even with crochet hook or knitting needles. I do not use a magnet because it affects the other things in the vicinity.

And no pushing the needles into the clothes I am wearing or table cloth/napkins as I get up to attend to something else.

It is no wonder then that in a furnished house allotted to us during one of Mani’s postings, what gave me nightmares was the discovery of needles stuck into curtains and upholstery. Believe me, my treasure hunt had rewarded me with 14, yes 14, needles over a period of three years. I imagined the lady working on fabric when she was perhaps called out, got distracted or got up to do some errand, sticking the needle into the nearest soft material and then forgetting about it. I was always wary of guests sitting on that sofa because I did not want them to be startled and scared when they felt a needlestick in the butt. They probably would have thought there were bed bugs in the furniture.  

I recall a neighbour once complained his thumb was stiff and painful and he could not move it. My dad though a vet, was the medical advisor to the neighbourhood. He asked Harjeet Veerji to go see a doctor who advised that an X ray be taken. Surprisingly, the black film showed a broken needle. He came back saying he remembered something had pricked his little finger about a week back. You could see his wife slowly going pale. She later admitted that she had not been able to find the second bit of the needle which had broken about ten days ago. Of course, my father gave all of us a fresh sermon on keeping everything with care back at its place.

Coming back to my story, the horror stories of intraoperative loss of surgical needles came rushing to my mind. Feeling doomed, I thought of garnering some sympathy and to cool down my frazzled nerves, I stuttered out this loss to my son.

The human I brought into this world found this a rare, yet perfect opportunity to remind me how much he was concerned that this ‘small carelessness’ of mine could spell a huge trouble for the other members of the family walking barefoot. Consumed by guilt and in an attempt to avoid argument, I chose to remain silent. I could have pointed out though that nobody, not even he, walks barefoot in that house.

Within the next few minutes, he had sputtered out a list of spoken words the length of the Andes range, on the outcome of the lost object. Now truth be told, I did not even know he could speak that much.

My sister-in-law and her husband have been angels all these years. So, sick with visions of either of them getting the jab from a sewing needle, I broke into a rash. To calm my nerves and to soothe the heat on my red patchy skin, I washed a few things under running water, felt exhausted and had to lie down.

When I went back to the dining table, my work area, Jenny, the housekeeper, beamed at me a loud ‘bye’, adding, ‘see you tomorrow’. That is when I stopped her to share my problem with her. “No problem,” she said cheerfully in her heavily accented English. “I do vacuum when you go for phone, maybe needle gone in garbage.” She went on to show the vacuum cleaner’s pipe going within the wall directly through the chute to garbage. “It gone into garbage,” she repeated nodding her, picked up her bag, patted her hair and left.

Yet the mystery of the lost needle remains unsolved, like one of the books/stories/films where the writer leaves the end to the reader/viewer to deduce their own conclusion.

Meanwhile, there has been no report of any needlestick injury from that part of the world so far, giving me the hope that Jenny was after all right and the vacuum cleaner probably sucked it in.

I do not believe in superstitions but funnily, one is that the loss of a needle forecasts the loss of a valuable thing, and if forgetting my glasses in the seat pocket of the plane on return counts, then it did come true. 

Telescopic magnet

Perhaps it is time I keep a telescopic magnet, even a metal detector in my kit. Or do you think a laparoscopic magnet would be useful?

Drs take 4 hrs to find sewing needle stuck in boy’s foot

April 23, 2020 John Feng, Asia Wire Report

Doctors rummaged around a young boy’s foot for four hours in an operating theatre in order to remove this broken sewing needle which he had accidentally stepped on.

Medics in the coastal city of Huai’an, in East China’s Jiangsu Province, said the seemingly straightforward retrieval surgery posed big challenges due to the object’s size and location.

The unnamed boy, six, was brought to Huai’an Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital and was unable to walk due to the pain in his right foot, the facility reported yesterday (16th April).

Head paediatric surgeon Zhang Youcheng eventually discovered the source of the child’s discomfort when scans showed the sewing needle between his second and third toes.

Doctor Zhang said: “When the boy arrived, he complained of pain in his foot.

“He couldn’t walk as it would hurt every time it touched the ground.

“There was clear swelling in his right foot, so we ordered scans which showed a metallic object in the ball of his foot.

“His parents said it was probably a sewing needle which he had accidentally stepped on.

“The needle was very thin and small – only about 10 millimetres (0.4 inches) – and was wrapped in his muscles.

“As his foot muscles moved, the needle constantly shifted.”

A team of medics spent four hours locating and removing the rusty sewing needle in surgery, after which metal wires had to be inserted into the foot to secure his bones, the hospital said.

The boy remains hospitalised but is expected to make a full recovery.                                                                                                                           

It has been two years, I am sure the boy is fine and has a scary story to tell everyone all his life.

                                                                                                   -Anupama S Mani