May Cause Unusual Thoughts
March 19, 2008
My hand doesn't look too bad in this picture. It didn't hurt much when I took it, either, because my hand was still numb from the local anesthetic. I've been trying to peek under the gauze, but I've only been able to see the very tip of the incisions. I'm dying to see what the stitches look like. Tomorrow, I'm allowed to take the dressing off, and we can look together. How's that sound?
"I think I jumped the gun," I said to my friend Russell when I called to cancel the dinner plans we had made for last night. I lasted half a day of work before going home in the afternoon, exhausted and frustrated after trying to get my work done using only my left hand while keeping my right one elevated. "I just want to go home, take a Vicodin, and go to sleep."
"No problem," said Russell. "I can't believe you actually thought you could work."
"I know. I didn't think it would be a big deal. Freelance, y'know. I gotta take the work when I can get it."
"Yeah, man, I get it. But we're getting older, you and I, we're not immortal like we used to be."
It’s a funny thing to say, anyway, since being immortal is either something you are, or something you're not. It's not something you "used to be." Unless you're a Greek god, that is, and treat immortality like a game of Dungeons and Dragons. I knew what Russell meant, of course, but if one more person reminds me that I'm getting older, I'm gonna spit.
Brian called to see how I was doing. I hadn't spoken to him in a while, and he wasn't sure what was wrong with my hand to begin with, or what was done to fix it, so I explained as best I understand it.
"It's my tendons," I said. "There are these sheaths in your fingers that the tendons slide through, like a bicycle cable running through a casing. The tendon in my middle finger — my index finger too, though not as bad — formed a nodule at the base of the sheath and couldn’t slide easily. If I made a fist, it would force the nodule into the sheath where it would stick. And when I tried to straighten my finger, it would force the nodule out with a 'pop'. It was painful and annoying and only getting worse."
"I get that sometimes, when I've been working a lot," said Brian.
"Yeah, I think it's relatively common. If I weren't diabetic, they would've just given me a cortisone shot and sent me on my way, but apparently, cortisone isn't recommended for diabetics. It sends your blood sugar into the stratosphere."
"So what did they do to fix it?"
"They sliced through my palm, at the base of my middle finger, to where the sheath is, and made a slice to widen the opening so that the swollen tendon can slide through more easily. Then they did the same for my index finger. They aren't exactly fixing it—more like—"
"They're jerry-rigging your hand."
"Exactly. Anyway, I'm hoping that it'll be much better when it heals. In the meantime, it fucking kills."
"Did they give you anything for the pain?"
"Vicodin," I said. "Matthew Perry's nemesis."
"Huh?"
"That guy from Friends. He was famously addicted to Vicodin."
"He and about 100,000 other Americans. It takes down a lot of people."
"Yeah? Well, not this cowboy. I hate 'em. They make me nauseated. When this is all over, I'm going to have nearly a full bottle left over."
"A bottle of Vicodin and a whole bunch of new best friends."
"One of the side effects listed on the prescription said, 'May cause unusual thoughts.'"
"Unusual thoughts? Like what? Things are good. Everything is going to be okay. The world is beautiful. "
"Ha, yeah, that would be pretty unusual. Unfortunately, all they did was make me think: I feel good. I can go to work. "
I want to write about the hospital, but what I've just written has nearly exhausted my hand’s computer tolerance for the day. Despite being comically inefficient, I'm going to try working again.
March 20, 2008
Whatever sympathy the above photo may inspire will likely be offset when I tell you that, since I can't get my stitches wet, Deborah had to come into the shower with me last night to soap me up and wash me down. Taking a shower together isn't anything we haven't done before, of course, but one hand wrapped in a plastic bag, held over my head and out of the way of the shower stream, rendered me particularly defenseless against Deborah's creative washing techniques.
"Why are you ticklish all of a sudden? You were never ticklish there before," she said, with a wicked laugh, exploiting every sensitive spot she could find.
"I don't know, it's just that—wait—hold on, hold on—"
Her playfulness showed no mercy.
While drying off, sharing our only clean towel, I plotted my revenge.
When we were dry and dressed, I decided to remove the bandages from my hand.
"The doctor said tomorrow," said Deborah. "Just wait until morning."
But I couldn't wait. The bandages were dirty and itchy, and above all, my curiosity was getting the better of me, so I carefully peeled away the light dressing, much of it stiff with dried blood. "Oh man," I said. "Look at this."
"I don't want to see," said Deborah, but she couldn't help herself. She approached me with the same slow, careful steps she takes when she's investigating the condition of a mouse that the cats have killed. "Eww."
When I saw her reaction, I saw my chance.
"No," she said, in retreat. "I don't want to see."
I followed her across the apartment, plodding like an unstoppable horror movie monster. "Talk to the hand!" I groaned. "Talk to the hand!"
I didn't keep it up for very long because, to be honest, the look of my hand was kind of freaking me out, too. I cleaned around the incisions a little and tried to loosely rewrap it with some fresh gauze. I couldn't do it with my left hand, though, and Deborah had to help.
"I've never had an operation before," I said as she played nurse. "I wonder why the government waited until now to implant the transmitters."
March 26, 2008
It will be a while before I know whether my hand is any better off than it was before the surgery, or if the hand surgeon merely blinded me with science, but my hand is definitely better than it was a day ago. And better still than the day before that. I have an appointment with the surgeon tomorrow to have my stitches removed, hopefully putting me another step closer to the business of crushing beer tins and climbing trees.
Hands are complicated things. After all, the human hand, complete with its opposable thumb, is well known as one of the major differences between humans and the rest of God’s Children. That, and the Human propensity for creating vast amounts of garbage. But the two go hand in hand, so to speak, and people probably wouldn't make so much garbage without hands. Or, if they did, it would certainly be a different style of garbage. As it is, most of the things people make, other than the things designed specifically to help people without hands, are designed for people with them. Two of them, in fact, as I'm reminded every time I try to tie my shoes.
March 27, 2008
An early appointment with the hand specialist put me, once again, amidst a motley crew of invalids waiting to be seen. Crutches, slings, and dirty casts scribbled over with magic markers. One of the doctor's assistants mispronounced my name and led me into an examination room. "How do you feel?" she asked.
"My hand is still pretty stiff, but it's coming along."
She nodded to let me know that stifness was to be expected before clarifying her question. "No, I mean, how do you feel? Fever, chills, anything like that?"
"Oh, no. I feel fine."
"You're a type 1 diabetic?" she said, looking over my chart.
"That's right."
I removed the loose bandage I'd fashioned out of gauze and rested my hand, palm up, on the table.
"First of all," she said. "I love the little bandage you made. It looks really cool."
I assumed she was poking fun at me, and laughed.
"No, really. It's like a cool little—I don't know—"
"I'll sell you one, if you want."
She put on a pair of blue rubber gloves and proceeded to poke and prod the two scabby incisions, hemming and hawing while she did. It looks pretty good," she said. "But since you're a diabetic, the doctor might want to leave the stitches in a little longer to be safe."
"I'm kind of eager to get them out," I said, disappointed.
"I know, but if we take them out and the wounds open up, you could wind up with an infection or a lot of scar tissue. We don't want that."
"No."
"We'll see what the doctor says, and if he says they can come out, I can do it in two seconds. We'll let him decide.”
“That's why he gets the big bucks.”
“He isn't here yet — I mean, he's in the building, but not in the office yet — but he'll be here soon. You're first."
She left me alone in the examination room. I pulled out my book and began to read. I hadn't read more than a page before another woman knocked on the door and came inside. She introduced herself as the doctor's assistant, sat down, and proceeded to cut my stitches out in no time flat. She swabbed my palm with a giant Q-tip doused in greenish liquid and stuck a row of "Steri-Strips" over each scab.
"How long do those stay on for?" I asked.
"They'll come off when you start washing your hands."
"When is that?"
"You tell me."
And with that, she was gone.
The doctor arrived a few minutes late, bent my fingers this way and that, explained the mess he'd found inside my hand during the operation, said the goop he cut out came back from the lab, and it was nothing unusual, "Which is good," he said. "And the fact that you're not screaming your head off when I bend you're fingers this way, is good too. Even though you can't move them all the way yourself, right now, it's about what I would expect. You're healing nicely. We'll set you up with a physical therapist and see you back in two weeks."
When I got to work, a girl in the office asked how my hand was doing. I told her I got the stitches out and that I was scheduled for a little physical therapy.
"Physical therapy?" she laughed. "For a finger? Hahaha. That's absurd."
“Tell me something in this great big beautiful world that isn’t.”
