A Little Pain, a Big Lesson

I am in a ridiculous amount of pain.

I nearly sliced my entire right index finger's knuckle off last night when a glass I was washing broke in my hand and a sharp, curved piece jammed itself deep into my hand.  Thankfully, it lodged against some muscle or tissue or something instead of going straight through.  When I finally got it stop bleeding, I was left with a half-circle gash around the top end of my knuckle, a cut deeper than any I've experienced in many years, and being as it was right on the bend, it kept breaking open and bleeding and clotting back up and breaking open and bleeding and, well, you get the picture.

I'd actually SHOW you the picture but I don't think you'd want to see it.

Eventually I managed to bandage it up and hoped my overnight sleep would give it that enough motionless time to seal back up for good.  It did.  What I hadn't counted on this morning though was the excruciating pain and numbness: the excruciating pain of two flaps of skin stretched to their almost-ripping point to try to seal up a gash in their fabric and the tingly numbness that now exists in half of that hand...until I do something stupid like try to use it.   Which I have been doing all morning.

As I'm right-handed, what were once the simplest tasks are now ridiculous. 

Shampooing my hair took 4x as long with just one hand.  I'm pretty sure there's still soap in the back.  Holding a hairdryer was out of the question completely.  The hard boiled eggs I made yesterday for this morning's breakfast?  Still in the fridge: no way can I peel them.  Driving to work was interesting. I didn't even have the ability to turn the key in my ignition:  had to reach across and do it with my left hand (same with the parking break release) -- which is terribly awkward and feels like you're doing something bad to your ignition switch.  And even now, so used to typing a billion words a minute two-hand typing, I'm at a loss with my right hand.  I'm still typing all well and good with the left and hunting and pecking with my ring finger on my right (it's the first on that hand that's not completely numb).  And let's not even go into how long it takes to use the bathroom today, okay?

And that's just the little things.

Because then I realized: wow. These ARE the little things.  Little inconveniences I have to put up with now...and for a temporary amount of time even (or so I hope!).  I've never broken a bone or anything so I really haven't ever been in a situation like this much, even temporarily.  And, Lordy, it is frustrating!  And I'm not making light of my frustrations.  This sucks and I have a right to be frustrated.  But it's also got me to thinking about others.  What about those folks who not-so-temporarilly have to adjust?  Our hundreds of military personnel coming home from war missing limbs or dexterity in them?  People of poor tragic accidents like that of Aimee Copeland, who lost both hands completely to flesh-eating bacteria?  How do they do it?  Or even folks with debilitating conditions, extreme arthritis or joint pain they've had so long they cannot remember their last pain-free day?  How do these folks do it?

I guess I always believed what people say: you just do. If you have to, you just find a way.  And although I understand that, I don't think I even realized how difficult that actually IS until today.  The simplest, everyday tasks are a struggle for me today.  What if I had to accomplish something BIG?  And what if this wasn't just a temporary inconvenience?

Yeah, I don't think I'll be taking the little things like being able to brush my own teeth or push an elevator button for granted again.