A new word in my vocabulary

I had hurt my right hand ring finger at work about May 11. It swelled up and I iced it and tried to be careful how I used it. It did not occur to me that something was really wrong. While I was in Oklahoma using my hand became more and more painful. It seemed everywhere I turned I was bumping it on something.

The day after I got back I headed over to see Dr. Mike and get my hand x-rayed. Of course this is what I heard: "I'm not surprised this happened to you. It is very rare that it would happen to this finger. You pulled two ligaments in your finger so hard that a bone by your knuckle has been chipped off. It's called an avulsion fracture and you also have another hairline fracture as well".

I'm the one in the family that usually gets the rare or unusual medical thing, like last year I had the MRSA infection under my arm, a spider bite that made my leg look like it needed amputation, and poison ivy around my eye... I knew I was on the list again for something unusual.

Then I was sent to the orthopedic surgeon who said, "we will buddy tape your ring finger to tall man. You can lift up to 10 pounds at work. When it heals up it your knuckle will probably be enlarged and the rest of your finger will still be swollen for up to a year". WooHoo! Now that's super news. When I went in for my 3 week check up nothing was healed up, so I'll be buddy taping for another month. There's good news though! I've added some new skills to my resume...I can now work quite efficiently with just one hand, can write legibly without flexing two stiff fingers and can identify an avulsion fracture on an x-ray.