oh heavens no. my mother was an AMAZING woman. she would never consider making a cake from a box. we never even ordered a pizza or got take out. cooked every meal, made a lunch for me every day except when i was a junior and senior in high school and had off campus lunch privileges.
as i recall, however, she was pretty knocked out from the pain medication. she was never ever sick and if she took a tylenol it would wipe her out for the night.
don't know what it was about hand accidents in our household but my dad also had a pretty awful incident.
we had an old spanish house in the hancock park section of los angeles. many of the doors had those antique glass doorknobs. well, one day my dad was trying to open the french doors that accessed the balcony off of the master bedroom. it was stuck.
dad was not a small guy. real tough guy too. former OSS/SI division agent from WWII, professional football player, etc.
so he heaved on the doorknob with everything he had apparently and the doorknob shattered in his hands. glass shards throughout his hands.
his doctor was a long time friends and as he was picked out glass shards and sewing up dad's hands he joked to his nurse, "good thing all the dumb ones aren't this strong..."
;)
A good sense of humor is the best medicine we humans have during a crisis. Sounds like they were both blessed with that.