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Digit Appreciation
Jun. 30th, 2005 10:55 pmThumbs. You never realize just how important they are until you have to try to function without them. Also, as frequently as the expression is used, I wonder how many people are aware of just how badly a sore thumb does seem to stick out.
Yesterday, in the process of attempting to vaccinate a poorly restrained dog, I managed to send a needle deep into my left thumb, just over the knuckle. Not a big deal, I've done similar things before. Silently thanking the powers that be that I did not penetrate the joint, skitter off bone, or actually inject myself full of lyme vaccine, I washed my hands, stuck a bandaid over it so I wouldn't get bloody thumbprints on white patients, and got back to work. It felt a little stiff and uncomfortable, but I figured that I had just wrapped the bandaid a little too tight.
So when I got a chance later in the day, I took the bandaid off. And realized that, no, it was not the source of the problem. Instead, my thumb had swollen up like a Ball Park hotdog, big and round and red and tight like a drum with skin two sizes too small. I could bend it perhaps ten degrees before motion just stopped, and touching anything with it felt rather like slamming it in a car door.
Stupid inflammatory process. I know that it serves a purpose, informing the organism that something has gone wrong and maybe they should stop what they're doing, but occasionally I just want to grab my neurons by their little frizzly ends and gently explain to them that yes, I know I'm not supposed to do that, and it wasn't intentional, and more importantly it's all done now, so could they please just SHUT UP? But, being unable to do that, I instead choked down a handful of antihistamines and anti-inflammatories and tried my best to function with one and a half hands.
Luckily for me, apparently it was just angry neurons, and this morning everything is, if not all better, at least significantly improved. I have spent much of today seriously appreciating my thumb, and singing its praises. I can floss my teeth. I can take rings off my right hand. I can clap, use a knife and fork, type, touch things without whimpering like a baby. This makes me inordinately happy right now, and I have promised never to take my thumb for granted again. I'd like to promise never to absentmindedly violate it with a 22-gauge needle again, but I'm far too realistic for that...
Yesterday, in the process of attempting to vaccinate a poorly restrained dog, I managed to send a needle deep into my left thumb, just over the knuckle. Not a big deal, I've done similar things before. Silently thanking the powers that be that I did not penetrate the joint, skitter off bone, or actually inject myself full of lyme vaccine, I washed my hands, stuck a bandaid over it so I wouldn't get bloody thumbprints on white patients, and got back to work. It felt a little stiff and uncomfortable, but I figured that I had just wrapped the bandaid a little too tight.
So when I got a chance later in the day, I took the bandaid off. And realized that, no, it was not the source of the problem. Instead, my thumb had swollen up like a Ball Park hotdog, big and round and red and tight like a drum with skin two sizes too small. I could bend it perhaps ten degrees before motion just stopped, and touching anything with it felt rather like slamming it in a car door.
Stupid inflammatory process. I know that it serves a purpose, informing the organism that something has gone wrong and maybe they should stop what they're doing, but occasionally I just want to grab my neurons by their little frizzly ends and gently explain to them that yes, I know I'm not supposed to do that, and it wasn't intentional, and more importantly it's all done now, so could they please just SHUT UP? But, being unable to do that, I instead choked down a handful of antihistamines and anti-inflammatories and tried my best to function with one and a half hands.
Luckily for me, apparently it was just angry neurons, and this morning everything is, if not all better, at least significantly improved. I have spent much of today seriously appreciating my thumb, and singing its praises. I can floss my teeth. I can take rings off my right hand. I can clap, use a knife and fork, type, touch things without whimpering like a baby. This makes me inordinately happy right now, and I have promised never to take my thumb for granted again. I'd like to promise never to absentmindedly violate it with a 22-gauge needle again, but I'm far too realistic for that...
