One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

So on Sunday Margaret agreed to help me with Diane...all we needed to do was replace the gasket in the middle of the engine between the cylinders and rocker arm assembly. Sounded easy. I knew it would be a pain, because the rocker arm assembly, is very heavy, covered in grease, and awkwardly shapped. But we thought we could handle it. So we started and were able to pull the rocker arm up and remove the old gasket without too many issues. We felt good, we were able to get it out in just a couple of minutes. We talked for a couple of minutes on how we could get the new gasket in and thought we had a good plan. First I would lift the rocker arm assembly onto the part where the radiator flows into the engine then I would lift from the rear so Margaret could slide the new gasket into place. In theory it sounded great, but in actuality not so good. We were able to get the new gasket slid into place but when I went to return the rocker arm assembly it pushed the gasket back. We tried this a few times and realized we weren't getting anywhere. We decided to try "plan B", I would basically try to lift the whole rocker arm straight up and hold it while Margaret put the gasket into place, then I would gently put the rocker arm back into place. Only when I was holding the rocker arm up about an inch or so above the engine, it slipped out of my hand and smashed Margaret's hand. She jumped back and I saw the blood...I thought the worst. When we got inside Margaret said she thought she had possibly broken her fingers. We decided to go to the ED, where she was taken back and they took X-rays...luckily nothing was broken! They put a splint on her finger and gave her a prescription for some muscle relaxers/pain medication. When we got home from the ED and picking up her prescription she said we needed to finish up the engine, that it needed to be done. So we went back out and I was able to lift the rocker arm up just long enough for her to get the gasket into place and I set it back down. We might have been off by a 1/16" but it was close enough for me! So now I just need to finish replacing all of the gaskets and then tighten all of the bolts to spec., reinstall everything and hope we were successful.