mindsquirt

At one point in my life, my middle finger on my left hand was in good working order. It could poke, manipulate, gesture, flick, and point. The nail was a suitable length and neatly bitten. It would glisten in the sun.

Now it is stubby, and ugly, and the nail is only about a 1/2 inch long. (I measured) It is a laughing-fest for my other 9 fingers and often has to be roused out of stints of deep morose.

As promised in this blog, I wanted to tell you the story of how it came to be this way.

but first, a Horrifying picture:











wait



for



it!













boo!













This is what my finger looked like about 2 weeks after running the sumbitch through a router. It essentially cut a dato in my finger and destroyed the bone right along with it.

the thing in the end is a pin that they shoved in the end to keep the end from falling off. the silver nail-looking thing is a peice of metal they put under my skin to keep my skin from growing over my nail bed.

you will notice that my index finger is bleeding. That was a walk in the park compared to the middle finger. it basically just had the nail cut through. However, the middle finger went straight up satan's asshole.


They say that losing parts of your hand is one of the most alarming parts of your body to lose. I guess that is becasue they are your primary feeling devices. Of course, I didn't lose entire fingers at the first knuckle, but it was a tad jolt to look down (after feeling a numb sting) and see somethign that looked like this:

Whoopsie-daisy



















I am not exaggerating.

This happened because I was not paying attention and I set up the guard on the router table wrong. The peice of wood I was running through the router pinched between the router blade and the guard and launched it across the room (20 feet). My hand was holding the wood, and was pulled into the blade, the rest is history.

Fortunatly, I went to Kutz and Kleinerts at Jewish Hospital (in Louisville), which is arguably one the best hand surgery clinics in the country. I don't remember much, but I do remember my friends coming pre-surgery and not seeming that impressed with the amount of carnage they saw, and the surgeon trimming my finger bones down to "something he can work with". It sounded alot like the sounds that finger nail clippers make. I didn't ask if he was using finger nail clippers, but I really should have.