On September 23, I injured my hand while wielding a hedge trimmer.
My arthritis was acting up, and I momentarily lost my grip on the tool in my left hand. As it fell, it sliced through my glove and my finger tips. The glove probably prevented it from being worse, but it was still pretty bad. And I was in a panic, because in the following weekend I had to play guitar at a wedding and two days after that I had to play again at synagogue for Rosh Hashanah.
Thankfully, four things happened that helped.
1. I was seen the same day at Urgent Care, and they closed the wounds to my two sliced fingertips. Some medical glue on my pinky, and three small stitches to my index finger, and I was set.
2. I was able to rest my hands between gigs, and when I had to play I could cover my index finger with a bandage.
3. Against medical advice, I was able to get the stitches out from my index finger three days ahead of schedule, so that I could do my synagogue gigs without the pain of the stitches pulling. There was some bleeding but bandages helped keep it from getting out of hand. If I hadn’t been worried about gigs coming so soon after my injury I would have left the stitches in for the full ten to twelve days.
4. My body tends to heal fairly quickly — it always has, I don’t know how or why — and the bandage was no longer needed by Yom Kippur.
The tingling under the scar took some time to subside. It was the last reminder of the pain.
Today, my finger is as healed as it will ever be.
Photos below show the progression.
Right to Left:
September 27
October 7
December 4
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