Broken Bones

I woke up Saturday morning and my thumb was throbbing. When my sweetie touched it I nearly had to slug him, so I decided it was time to run over to the Instacare. I drove the three-minute trip about 9:00 a.m. By the time I got there I was pleased to see absolutely no one in the waiting room. I’ve never been through the Instacare so quickly! I saw the doctor, had x-rays, was fitted with a split, given a prescription, and told I’d be fine in a few days, all in about 40 minutes. That’s got to be a record! That’s right; no break this time. The splint is a little annoying, but the swelling is going down, so that’s good.

I’ve told you before that I love basketball! I played for two years on my high school team and then didn’t play for about 20 or so years. Then I got this new church calling that put me in charge of women’s sports. The first day I walked into the church and saw those women play, I turned around and walked back out. The woman who was in charge chased me down the hall and coaxed me back in. I was absolutely terrified! Somebody said, “You can just watch this time…you don’t have to play.” I sat on the fringe of the group. Other than my leader who chased me down, I didn’t know anyone. After a couple of minutes, I pulled on a jersey and announced to no one in particular, “Well, I’m going in.  If I don’t try it, I’ll never come back.” So in I went. And it was fun! I don’t think I made any points, but I got a couple of rebounds and I didn’t fall down or foul out or anything.
After that it was like an addiction. I loved the way the exercise made my body feel. Even though it made me desperately tired, I knew it was the right thing for me. You are probably wondering why I started talking about basketball when I was telling you about my thumb. I’ve been playing basketball for nearly five years now and I break a finger every season! And it’s not usually the same finger either. The first two I broke were the middle fingers, which is pretty logical since I usually end up playing Center. I’m only 5’8”, but that’s tall in our league. Then I broke my ring-finger…twice. First in the upper knuckle, then in the lower knuckle. I figure it’s just part of the game.

And I don't break just my own bones...The Gym Rat is super-tall (about 6’6”), so I was terribly excited to get him to play volleyball with me. The very first time I convinced him to show up he managed to break his finger. But he was too busy working and playing to bother going to the doctor. About six weeks passed and by then I had forgotten all about it. Then he showed it to me. I immediately got on the phone and called my hand specialist. His knuckle was collapsing. The answer was surgery and a pin…the next day!

Actual pin! Nasty!

He survived the surgery OK, but as he was sitting in the recovery room, the doctor told him that working around paint (he works for KWAL Paint) wouldn’t be a good idea and he was going to have to take 6 weeks off until they took the pin out. This didn’t set well with my son. So of course he went back to work within a few days. They let him do the easy stuff since any paint on the pin sticking directly out of the end of his finger would have gone directly into his bone and his bloodstream and he would have died within a few hours! Talk about a little extra stress I didn’t need! But all went well and he had the pin pulled out right on schedule. I’m grateful that I’ve never had to have any of that, but I have a few more broken bone stories I’ll share with you tomorrow.