I remember watching movies about the Civil War (the U.S. one, not Sri Lanka) and seeing a soldier getting his leg amputated.  The soldier’s buddy would give him a stick to bite down on and a bottle of whiskey to numb the pain. That’s it.  No anesthetic.  No sterilization.  No co-pay.  For those of you who don’t live in the United States, a “co-pay” is what you pay the doctor after you or your employer have already paid for medical insurance which is supposed to cover the cost of the doctor visit.  It’s like tipping a waiter or taxi driver.  Except if you don’t you may not be able to go back.

This may sound horrible to us today, but the fact is you had a better chance of surviving if the doctor actually cut your leg (or other limb) off within the first twenty-four hours of injury.  If he didn’t, your chances of dying doubled.  For every soldier that died in battle, two died because of infection or disease.

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Which brings me to my point: would you rather waste away from the decrepitude of a decomposing lifeless job or can you deal with the pain of having it removed?  It may not be pretty, or fun, but with a little whiskey and a stick to bite down on it can be bearable and ultimately save your life.  Stress from a job you hate will affect other areas of your life adversely and could cause you even more stress (I call it a stress spiral™); left untreated, it could literally kill you.

We depend on our jobs for income to buy stuff, like food, but when does a job become toxic?  When is “enough” enough?  When is it time to amputate the rotting leg?

Side note: If a person was getting a decayed tooth pulled, biting down on something really wouldn’t help.  I wonder if just whiskey did the trick.  I guess they just had to ingest a lot of cocaine.

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