Hope you’re better overall soon

One of my many was when, on a dirt road through the African bush and 50 miles from any settlement, the big end bearings on my car engine packed up.
I jacked up the front of the car to get room to wriggle underneath, below the engine, then undid the sump bolts and carefully removed it, together with its precious load of very hot oil. I then undid the big ends of each piston in turn to remove the shell bearings. I then took the suede boots I was wearing and, using the blade from my razor, I cut strips of suede leather, the same width as the bearing shells and just the right length to wrap around the crankshaft. I dipped the 4 strips into the oil in the removed sump, leaving them to soak whilst I had a smoke break. I then wrapped each strip round the crankshaft, replaced the pistons' bearing clamps, tightened them thourougly, and finally put back the sump. 2 hours work.
When I got to the settlement there was no garage, but by now I was pretty confident so I drove on to a town, a further 50 miles away. No spares, so I topped up the oil in the sump and continued to my destination, a large town 200 miles from where I had broken down. The local agent had no bearing shells in stock, but told me they could have some there in 5 day's time. Since I was enjoying only a long weekend's holiday, I said no and after my holiday drove the 350 miles back home. When my local garage finally opened the engine up to fit new bearing shells, the crankshaft was undamaged, and indeed highly polished - to everyone's amazement.
I had driven 600 miles on my shoes.
Where did I get the idea? I was a keen fan of cars, and had once read that the model T Ford had leather big-end bearings. They work!!

I developed an AI to analyse micro welds that saved 18 lives a day and got me a promotion. (and people say AI are evil) I also made a LEGO in Billund at their factory on one of their machines to make LEGO's.

The mother of invention is necessity, not desperation. Desperation is the mother of MacGyver.

"I can't stand to wait in line long
So I built a new machine
It just measures up the distance
And eliminates the folks between"

That's a baller invention.

Salt is definitely your friend. Not table salt. It can backfire, but good mineral salt. Proper mix is about 1/2 -1 teaspoon per quart of water. Yes you read that correctly. I grew up spending a LOT of time in the desert. I remember when that doc with no nutritional training came out with the book on the evils of salt. Shortly after, we would wat h tourists guzzling gallons of bottled water and eating fruit , avoiding all salt...and we would wonder when the rescue crews were going to be dispatched for them. Even had a nickname for them....Buzzard bait excess water , especially with potassium is a good way to pee yourself to death in the wild. Pickle juice does wonders for leg cramps.

Hmmmn. I hear ads on radio for that product all the time. Maybe I should try some.

Potassium is good also!

Magnesium gets rid of my leg cramps and restless leg syndrome. When restless leg was bad, I used legitrin or tonic water since Quinine is in that and it works.

My desperation invention, however, would be using four sawhorses, two C clamps, and a straight edge clamped to sheets of plywood instead of a table saw.