Two weeks ago tomorrow I was cutting a piece of wood on a miter saw when the wood seized up on the blade and kicked back, violently wrenching the wood out of my hand and flinging it across the room. My first thought was “whoa, close call” for about one second until I saw the blood spurting out of my finger. NOT a finger-blade injury; the wood had whacked the end of my middle finger on my left hand, splitting it open.
On to the ER, diagnosis of a “Tuft fracture of the distal phalanx”, 3 stitches and a one week course of antibiotics, because an open wound plus fracture means danger of infection. They put on a finger splint and told me to wear it for 2 or 3 weeks. They also said I may want to see an orthopedic guy at some point, but they didn’t go into detail about that.
So, I’m not complaining; it could have been worse, and plenty of people are dealing with much worse problems than a finger boo-boo. But I’m pretty active with my hands-- I type on a keyboard for a living, and I play guitar (badly, but I enjoy it). So I’m just wondering what I can expect in terms of getting back my normal finger dexterity, and if I really do need to see an ortho guy.
The cut part of my finger seems to be healing well. But the pad of my finger feels weird-- it’s still very sore and sensitive to the touch. Since it’s been almost 2 weeks I’ve been experimenting with my splint off, gingerly. I can bend my finger but it feels stiff and weak. Part of that is likely just wearing the splint, plus my hands are somewhat arthritic (osteo) so that can’t help. Yesterday I started using the keyboard for work without the splint on-- I don’t really use the fractured finger for typing yet, but having it straight out in the splint when my other fingers were curled typing and using the mouse was making the tendons in my wrist sore.
I even experimented on the guitar a little bit yesterday (the fractured finger is on my fretting hand). I tried making a few chords and strumming, and my finger has a ways to go there. I thought, hey, this would be a great time to practice my slide guitar-- the slide itself would make a great splint! But of course I looked everywhere and couldn’t find my slide. My splint is metal and runs along the inside of my finger, so I may try using it as a slide 