It's Sunday Scribblings Personal (On Monday): Healing

A Brief Note: I woke yesterday at 7 a.m. We were off to softball by 8. A game at 9:40 (win). Another at noon (win). And a final game at 2:30 (win). A good day at the fields. Called mom to no avail. Called the older white folks and chatted. Headed for a post-game beer. Arrived home at 8 exhausted. And didn't blog. So, I've decided to combine my Sunday blog topic with my Monday blog topic.

It was an autumn Monday in 1991. I know it was 1991 because I was a freshman in high school. Autumn, because that's when the bulk of football games are played. And a Monday because that's when the Junior Varsity team generally played their football games at Lyman Hall.

We the freshmen were practicing behind Lyman Hall's Fitzgerald Field while the Junior Varsity played someone in the Housatonic League, which at that time consisted of teams like Derby, Shelton, and Seymour as well as North Haven, Sheehan, and Lyman Hall. There I was on the defensive line running full speed drills. Pounding each other incessantly. That's how our coach liked it. Some of us liked it too. I had my days of liking it. And then there were others that I didn't enjoy so much.

This was one of the latter.

There I was - I remember it rather clearly, which is saying a lot since I'm not one of those who remembers plays of which I was a part on some cold Friday on God knows what field during the early 90s. The running back - Scott, number 48 - plowed forward, almost out of my reach. Almost. I stuck out my hands and grabbed for anything I could. I succeeded in grabbing. But not in securing a handle on the pads. He drifted by like a bad dream. I fell to the ground.

It was then that I felt something weird. No pain. Just a weird sensation on my left hand. Two pieces of skin that normally don't touch. A finger that doesn't usually point in that direction. My ring finger had been dislocated. It pointed over towards my index finger. Almost horizontal (if you consider that fingers normally point vertically).

I stood. I think some of my teammates ogled the sight of a displaced finger. But I can't be certain as I was concerned only with putting it back the way it had been. The coach took one look and immediately decided it needed to be evaluated. Duh! He therefore took me to the ambulance that had to be present at any football game played in the state. The EMT sat me down and took a look. 'It looks like we'll need to take you to the hospital.' I looked at him with utter fear. He read my face. 'It's because we can't risk making it worse. And we're not doctors.'

I did not want to go to the hospital. The last time I had been for a serious injury, I had had multiple stitches in my head. Not to mention that if the ambulance carted me off to the hospital, I would have been responsible for the disruption of the JV game. I wasn't particularly thrilled about either possibility. So, the EMT searched the stands for a doctor. And found one.

I can't remember that doctor well. A seemingly nice middle-aged gentleman with a good bedside manner. He asked me if I wanted him to fix my finger. I told him I did. Then he started talking to me. Calmly. Too calmly, I realized only later. After he jerked my finger and put it back the way it was supposed to be. He subsequently gave me the disclaimer. 'You should go see a specialist to ensure that you didn't break anything in there.'

No ambulance ride. I sat out the rest of the practice - though I think the coach expected that with five semi-functioning fingers on my left hand, I should have been able to rejoin the practice.

That week, I visited a specialist. He commented that the doctor had done well. Put a splint on it and told me to take a week off from football. A reprieve. I kept the splint in place, waiting patiently for it to heal. I took off the permanent splint to find a crooked finger. 'It will be fine' he explained to me. I just had to do some exercises so that it would heal normally. So, I wore a splint that could be removed a few times a day for the exercises.

I exercised that finger. Had to make sure the tendon was stretched well enough to allow the finger to straighten out. I exercised. And exercised. And concentrated on making it go back to the way it was. I pushed that knuckle to the point of rather extreme pain. Day after day. Night after night. Expecting some day that it would miraculously appear as it did prior to that day.

After a year trying to exercise, I came to grips with the fact that my finger would be crooked forever. And so it healed crookedly. Scar tissue and tendon. A gross marvel for friends and family alike. A tribute to a doctor who couldn't read an x-ray. A prime candidate for future arthritis. And a handy keepsake from my days as a Lyman Hall Trojan.

I wouldn't trade this little unique piece of me for anything.