The following was written Sunday, but I could not post it for lack of an internet connection: I am writing this with one hand while sitting in a room in UAB Hospital in Birmingham.The other hand, swathed in bandages, is being held vertically higher than my heart to keep fluids from building up in the thumb doctors sewed back on Friday night.
It was a near thing. The surgery resident who was attending me had consulted with his boss and was already numbing the area around my dangling left thumb, preparing to amputate right there in the emergency room, His pager summoned him. His boss apparently had taken another look at the X-rays and decided it might be possible to save the thumb. I don't know whether he knew that I am left handed.
The upshot was that a surgical team spent four or five hours putting back together nerves and blood vessels, and I am tethered to an IV pole that is infusing me with antibiotics and blood thinner to try to prevent the vessels and capillaries from getting plugged up. The surgeon stopped by earlier this afternoon and said things are looking pretty good, though nothing is certain. He explained that he could not save the nail bed and that he pulled a flap of skin up to cover the missing nail. If it works, the thumb will be a little shorter with the first joint fused.If the flap fails, the thumb will be shorter still. As so often is the case, there was no indication that disaster was looming, On Friday morning, I was working alone in my neighbors shop on some Adirondack chairs for our front deck. I have worked with tools and wood almost all of my life. I know the safety rules, and like many others, I have skirted the safety rules from time to time without suffering consequences.
Until Friday. A moving saw blade, a hand too near it, and a mangled thumb. No one was around, so I wrapped my T-shirt around my hand and walked home. My wife was not at home and I couldn't reach her on her cell phone, so I found some gauze and tape and wrapped my hand and drove to the Russell Medical Center emergency room. They quickly determined that I needed to go to UAB and made arrangements. I had plenty of time during the ambulance to reflect on my own folly, and I am no less chagrined by hearing the doctors stories about power tool accidents much more catastrophic than mine. I've had time to consider, too, that it is not just guys with tools who grow dangerously complacent after years of getting by. Recent reports about inattention in airline cockpits have stirred concern. And I suspect that the many of the people aboard that oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico were doing things they've done for years. The consequences of my complacency were great enough. Complacency on a larger scale can be truly catastrophic.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
