That was creative brother! See that perfect bone outline just above the skin?
Yeah, that's a good one! No sense doing these things half-way.
So, the first time I ever hurt myself really badly--also a finger injury--was a long time ago when I lived by myself in Ten Sleep, Wyoming. I was camping solo up in the Bighorn Mountains, fortunately out of my truck rather than in the back country. I was just starting out as a "grownup," had minimal camping gear, no first aid kit, and of course there were no cell phones back then.
Anyway, after a long afternoon of hiking and climbing around the canyon, I had built a fire and put a can of beans on to simmer. I couldn't find my spoon, so I decided to whittle myself one. Hmmm, a relatively inexperienced camper, extremely tired, alone, whittling with a dull knife by fire-light. What could possibly go wrong? Nowadays a situation like that would have all sorts of red lights going off in my head, but ah, I knew so little back then.
The knife popped through the wood and got the inside of my right index finger, right across the innermost pad. Just unzipped the whole thing. I felt the blade grate against bone, which I figured wasn't too good. I instinctively curled up my finger, so there wasn't much blood. But the first thing that scared me was that it didn't hurt. And it really should have. Then I opened it up for an instant and could see the bone inside. That scared me a bit, too. I decided my curiosity was satisfied, so I curled it back up fast.
So, I bundled my tarp and all my other stuff into the back of my truck, stomped out my little fire (I'm sure the local racoons enjoyed my beans), and drove back to town, shifting with my pinky. I got home and went over to the neighbor's house to ask if I could use their first-aid kit. He looked over my shoulder as I attempted to clean this gaping wound with an alcohol wipe, and convinced me that I needed him to drive me to the ER, about 30 miles away in Worland.
Worland's ortho surgeon took one look at it and pronounced it over his head, and sent me up to Billings, about 3 hours away. Sometime during that first night, the sensory nerves in my finger woke up, which I found completely unacceptable. The Billings doctor really knew his stuff. He said that usually he would just fuse the outer joint in the finger, which would give me an easier recovery. When I told him depended on my guitar and other instruments for my livelihood, he said, OK, we can fix it, but it's gonna hurt. Oh, goody.
Well, after three hours of surgery (my dad said I was singing "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" as they wheeled me in, but I really don't remember), numerous trips back to Billings to check in with the doc, and several months of physical therapy, I had about 1/2 use of my finger back, which is enough to play the guitar and pennywhistle. About ten years later, the numbness went away--I guess the sensory nerve grew back. So now I have an almost completely functional finger. And a really neat-o scar.
T
