It's easy to forget how fragile the human body really is. Most of the time I feel pretty tough. I can lift big weights, I can raise an 800 pound motorcycle with one hand, I can split logs and what have you.
Yesterday, however, I got smacked on the thumb with the fiberglass handle of a mattock I was using. I don't think the finger bones broke, but the thing has swollen up enormously and bruised. It hurts to touch anything. Just one little touch, the contact lasted less than a second, and for a while all my strength is gone. I can't grip anything with that hand.
Such a strange world. You forget how strange, sometimes. This is a minor complaint that will soon heal, I suspect, but it reminds me of how precarious life in the bone-house really is.
Grim, my advice is to get it looked at by a pro. My wife got her finger entangled with a livestock leash and beat up bad. She just lived with it for a couple of months then went to see the Doc- by that time it was too late to do the necessary reattachment of the tendon and bone splinters. The "one little touch" pain symptom jives pretty well with all the breaks I can recall personally.
ReplyDeleteA finger is a lot more expendable than a thumb.
Exploiting the fragility of the human body is what all the ancient and modern H2H lethal force solutions needed to do.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Raven. The swelling has gone way down today, and although it is still quite sore to the touch I can bend it partially again. I'll give it another day or two to see if it gets better. I don't much like going to see the doc.
ReplyDeleteI don't much like going to see the doc.
ReplyDeleteGet another doc. Mine is highly effective, and she's fun to look at, too. 'Course, it's bit of a step to get here.
Eric Hines
Heh. My doc is effective enough, although he's quite elderly. He respects that I don't come in for every little complaint, though, and so he takes it seriously when I do.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there's a bit of reduction of resilience as we get a bit more experienced too, I'm afraid. Every once in a while, I get reminded of that fact. Not only when I get injured and it takes longer to heal than I thought, but when I see how quickly the kids recover from their injuries. Youth- wasted on the young, the little ingrates.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny though, I certainly agree with you, but occasionally I'm also reminded of just how durable the human body is. I've survived things that you'd think should have killed me, and seen stories of even more amazing survival than my own. So fragile, and yet, so durable at the same time.
So fragile, and yet, so durable at the same time.
ReplyDeleteWe're just bags of impure water. But the mess also is self-repairing.
Eric Hines
I keep reminding myself of Chesterton's point. People talk about how unfair it is to die without remembering how amazing it is to be born -- to ever experience the world at all. If it's irritating to be injured for a while, how wondrous it is that you heal. However nice it would be to heal faster, how amazing it is to think of the things quietly re-ordering themselves in the right way all by themselves.
ReplyDeleteToday I can mostly bend the thing, although the bruising is still quite obvious.
After a couple days, some heat treatment (soak in warm water, or wrap in a warm pack) can help increase circulation, helping clear waste products from repairing the damage, and provide material for rebuilding.
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping for the best.
I use peppermint oil and wintergreen oil.
ReplyDelete