Talk to the Hand

It was a good weekend. Brick-a-bracking on Friday night yielded 150 new bricks at a premium sale price. Saturday was scrapbooking -- which included an impromptu trip to Michael's, courtesy of most excellent friend Chele -- and housekeeping.

And then there was yesterday. It was a gorgeous day, so attention turned to outside and mowing.

It was a good temp but a bit windy. That made both bagging and sweeping difficult. It also resulted in an injury -- yep, that's my hand in the photo -- that had me starting the week in the local ER.

It happened as I was wrapping things up. I have to fold in the handle on the mower to get it into the shed. I had it in the shed and one side loosened while I worked on the other to fold it down. I had just loosened the second side but before I could reach over to the first and fold it in, a strong gust of wind hit the shed door which in turn hit the lawnmower, dropping the bar down -- catching my middle finger right between the two pieces of bar.

The first 20 minutes or so were excruciating. Surely, the top of my finger was going to just pop straight off. I ran cold water on it and wrapped it in a towel with ice. It eased slightly, so I drove the yard waste to the dump.

I thought that keeping ice on it and taping it down would help but it didn't. The swelling and discoloration were both worse. I decided around 6:30 to just go on to the ER.

The good news: It's not broken, so it won't take as long to heal. The bad news: It can't be drained to alleviate the swelling and pressure. So, it probably would hurt less if it was broken, according to the doc. It's splinted and I have to keep regularly icing it through tomorrow. It could be up to a week before I notice a "marked difference" in the swelling.

The better news: It's my left hand, so it's not as limiting as it could be. And they gave me drugs. So, I was able to get a little rest earlier today. Something I didn't get much of last night. So, here's to a good night's sleep.