Still Healing

The Friday after Thanksgiving, I got off early from work. I got home early enough for lunch, so I decided to take the family out to Wendy's.

When we were leaving, I opened the passenger door on the van. Then I turned to open the sliding door for the kids to get in. All of a sudden, BAM!!! The passenger door slammed shut on my middle finger. This was all happened while my wife was getting in on the driver's side. She reached over and tried to open the door. As she did, I pulled. Guess what? I was still stuck, because the door had locked when it closed. She then unlocked the door and then opened the door. I started jumping up and down and screaming my head off. F**k did it hurt.

The way the tip of my finger swelled up, I thought it was broke. The hospital was just up the road, so Mrs. B took me to the hospital to make sure everything was ok. While checking my vitals, I realized I needed my tetnis shot (only 3 yrs late). Three x-rays showed every was intact. I got my shot. It wasn't too bad. The needles have gotten smaller in 13 years. The nurse put a protective plastic splint on my finger to try to prevent me from banging it into things.

The next day, all under the nail was bruised. A couple of days later, the bruising was disappearing, but there was tremendous pressure. I had to take a pair of scissors and scrap a hole through my nail. No nerves in bone, so it didn't hurt. I felt it when I got through though. After that, I put a needle in the little hole to ream it out to make it bigger. This allowed the fluid build up in the damaged area to start draining. The next day, it also started draining from back by the cuticle. Everyonce in a while when the pressure starting building again, all I had to do was press down on the nail and more fluid would flow. Believe me, it felt so much better after that.

This past Monday, I was able to get the nail off. This has really allowed some further healing and less swelling. It is almost back to normal size. Now I have to wait to see if a new nail will grow back. I hope so. I don't want to tell that story the rest of my life. If it does grow back, it will probably grow in gimped for a while. It will take some time to reshape. Below is what it looked like the first day and now. I didn't get any pictures of it in between. Sorry, I was trying to keep it clean so it wouldn't get infected.

If this is the kind of stuff that happens when you leave work early, let me work overtime.