Well, the sun is shining, the grass is green, and for once, Mother Nature isn't trying crawl up my nose and vomit. I say it's the perfect time to stay indoors and write a blog post.
My stubby little left index finger. It's one of my least noticeable and most important features. It's been half the nose-picker it used to be, since April 1st, 2010, when a giant yellow tractor tried to sloppily make out with it.
It occurs to me now that I've never actually told the story of how I lost my bodily symmetry. The closest I've ever come was two weeks ago, when I was drunk, at 3 AM, with five strangers. Good times. But even then, I only told maybe eighty percent of the story. I got so tired of giving the usual one-liner "Fought a tractor. Think I've got it bad, you should see the other guy," that I started making stuff up. Near the end of high school, I started telling people I was bit by a tiger, or lost a chainsaw sword fight with Bruce Lee.
And yes, my little accident occurred on April Fool's Day. I can't decide if that particular holiday has been ruined for me, or taken on much more meaning. Maybe God doesn't like people ever forgetting his pranks.
Anyway, it was the last couple days of March, and it was hot. My brother and me (people who had the urge to correct this sentence should find the nearest tall building and try to make out with the sidewalk) were helping our grandfather. My grandpa is the toughest seventy-year-old you've never seen, but he was getting on in years, so he asked for a hand building a drainage ditch.
It was manual labor of the most painstaking variety. For three days, Cody and me (Building, sidewalk, etc.) were basically shoveling gravel around a trench. It was absolutely no fun.
The gravel was brought in by Grandpa, who was driving his big yellow tractor. For a couple of days, everything went rather well. But around ten or eleven, on April Fools Day, the tractor slipped a gear.
Or something like that. I was more concerned with what happened immediately after.
An enormous school-bus-colored behemoth came barreling into the trench, right on top of the fresh gravel it had just dumped. And, incidentally, on top of me.
Cody was quick enough to get out from under it, and that was a small blessing. Another was that the tractor's big-ass bucket was up, so that I was crushed only by the burning-hot engine compartment. I never thought I would be so thankful to be crushed by a fiery, hellish engine grill. If the bucket had been down, I would've bought the farm right then, because the left side of my chest would have been immediately downsized.
My hand was busted. I was pinned against the ditch bank. I don't remember if I was screaming in my head or out loud, but all I heard was "FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK," or words to that effect.
Grandpa didn't waste a second. He jumped off the tractor and ordered Cody to call 911. Then he used a shovel, and then his hands, to free me from the Giant Yellow Asshole.
We were making the drainage ditch for GP's neighbor, and getting paid for it. I remember him, chastising me for not getting to the ambulance faster. I don't like him. I told Cody to look away from my hand, which looked something like you'd see in a horror movie, and he did.
The ambulance took off, and a kindly middle-aged woman told me that I'd get morphine at the hospital. I don't remember the details of this trip, but I'm sure I was pretty hilarious in shock.
I did indeed get my morphine at the hospital. I don't know if you know this, but morphine? It's pretty fucking great. From the millisecond it enters your bloodstream, if feels like a warm, sun-lit bouquet of flowers blooming under your skin.
I remember asking for a lot of high-fives.
Anyway, the home-town hospital wasn't that helpful. So I was driven to a few towns over, where they had a better setup. Once there, I was denied my first high-five, by the doctor who told me my finger was probably a lost cause.
Didn't like him, either.
So, the sun's going down, I'm high as a kite, and the decision is made: I'm going to be flown to Harborview, a big hospital in Seattle. I asked the orderlies if they ate their Wheaties, gave 'em a drumroll and a countdown, as they loaded me into the Learjet.
Yup. Learjet. It was much more narrow than I expected, and of course, I didn't fly luxury first-class. But I saw the city lights from the window of my flying hospital bed, and that might be the moment I fell in love with Seattle.
In the first minutes there, they cleaned the wound. Powerful, thin jets of lava (I was later told it was water) scoured the wound of all the dirt. It hurt worse than the tractor, even through the morphine. I might have cried. I definitely swore.
They tried this new, experimental microsurgery. The blood vessels of my index finger looked like they'd been stuck in a blender, you see, and a good blood flow is a big part of healing.
I was out for the surgery, obviously, though it went well. They stuck me in the Tropicana room, which, in a cruel twist of fate, was something like ninety degrees. Apparently that helped the healing process.
The only thing to watch was CNN. I burned through a lot of books. The nurses were nice. I met a girl from Somalia.
Now, when they did the micro-surgery, they stabbed my finger. Really, they did. Lengthwise, with a bit of steel poking out of the tip. Presumably, it ran the length, down into the hand. I couldn't move it a millimeter, even if I tried. At this point, the finger was a cool violet color.
I got a lot of visitors in this time. Family is a big help in the worst of times, and I was damn grateful they were there. My grandma bought me a book in the gift shop, which I still have.
A problem came up: even with the surgery, the finger was dying. Blood could get in, but not out. So they did was any modern medical practitioner would do.
They broke out the leeches. Little green bastards, with black/brown stripes. More than once, they fell off into my cast, and they needed to be fished out before they started nomming on my palm.
It started to hurt again, even with the painkiller drip. So they gave me a button! A cool little button, which let me take my drug abuse in my own hands. Every minute or so, I could press it and get my fix. I got bored enough of CNN that I eventually just tapped the button the whole time, smiling whenever I got a little rush of joy.
But, alas. Even with the finest medical technology--and leeches!--they weren't able to save the finger. It went from red, to purple, to black. Near the end, it started to smell a little.
I went in for surgery to have the thing cut off. I cracked a few jokes, counted backwards from ten, and then I held up my hand.
A nurse took it. I gripped pretty tight. And when I woke up, it would take slightly less time to trim my fingernails.
They cut the finger off at an angle, and then wrapped the flap of skin underneath before sewing it all up. So I've got a little scarred smiley face where my index finger used to be.
On the plus side? I was double insured, and had Aflac. So not only did my family not pay a dime for my expensive stay, but there was also a little surplus left over on the side, which I used to get Lasik surgery.
I traded a bit of meat for new eyes. I'm not complaining.
No comments:
Post a Comment