My Return To Storytelling: The Hand

Surprise surprise, it has been a while since last we spoke and I'm not exactly shocked to read the last time I posted was back in September and it is now late December.

The sad part is that I have had an interesting set of experiences since then. The good news for those of you reading is that now you get to hear about them. And again, the bad news is that I will only be able to talk about one event during this post. I originally planned to only skim over this topic but as you can see I went to into more detail than expected.

So to start my timeline I will begin with an interesting story. At the same time as my last two posts (my birthday and dog passing away) I had something else happen but felt it was trumped by the other posts.

At that time I was really getting into the habit of riding my bicycle around the neighborhood. Since I was doing it two to three times a week I felt confident and was going a bit faster than I should have been. One day after a short rainy spell I decided to go biking. On the final straightaway for the ride there were a lot of bushes and branches over the path that were being weighed down by water. To avoid them I decided to duck down and ride under them. By doing this I lost balance and ran into a chain-linked fence effectively dislocating my right pinky at the knuckle.

This might sound like it was a bad situation but it could have been worse. I was spared serious injury because of two things. One, because it was the end of the ride my body was effectively warmed up and loose. I was able to pull my finger back into place easily. It actually popped out twice since I wasn't sure at the time that it had in fact popped out of the socket. The second time, however, I figured it wasn't normal to make a fist with the pinky being out of line with the rest of the fingers. The second thing that saved me is a bit of an unsafe statement. My handlebars were loose and were pushed to an awkward angle as I hit the fence. So it looks like my finger was spared to a degree. If the handlebars had been tightly secured I could have easily had something worse happen like losing my finger entirely.

I made it home without anything else happening but I made a mistake by not securing my finger into place. After taking a shower I felt a very distinct pop in my hand and I knew instantly that it wasn't a good thing. I got dressed and approached my family for advice. They were not sure what to think and asked if I could try and pull my finger back into place. I tried a few times but my body had cooled down and it was beginning to be painful. It came as a surprise to me to see my mother, who at one point was a nurse, become a bit uneasy with the situation. Everyone decided that I should probably go to the ER and have a professional put it back in place.

All the while I had been texting two friends in the medical field asking them their opinion. At first they thought it funny. Once they realized I was telling the truth they told me I should avoid wasting time and money by going to the ER and just have someone at home pull my finger. Yeah, funny statement but it worked.

As I stood in my living room with my mother and sister watching anxiously I had my father brace my wrist and pull my pinky. It all happened within two seconds but it stays sharp in my mind. One moment I feel a quick sharp pain in my pinky knuckle and the next moment I feel a distinct pop again. This time I know it's a good pop and I scream out, "That's it!". My mother gets a bandage and we quickly wrap my hand up so the pinky doesn't have a chance to dislocate again.

In the end I was fortunate that there wasn't any significant damage to any tendons and that I didn't break any bones. The first month my hand felt really uncomfortable and I wrapped it up to limit the motion. After a few weeks I tried go without any support but I still felt a bit of pain. I should have kept the support but by that time my pinky had gone completely stiff and it was difficult to bend on its own. So in my mind I wanted to start the rehabilitation process.

My hand is not at 100% even now but I have full range of motion in my pinky. If I try to make a tight fist I feel weakness in the knuckle and there is still a bit of pain. I foolishly tried exercising on a punching bag to test my hand and I could feel any progress in the healing process step back at least two weeks. I think it's just a matter of time and smart exercise to regain the strength in my hand.

One of the things I learned from this experience is to appreciate a healthy body free of injuries. Try to be smart when doing anything active. I also learned that using one hand instead of two is difficult for even the simplest of day to day things.