Wounded in Action

So we had a playwrights festival the past weekend. About 16 shows in five days. Anyway, Sunday night I got home and was really excited about making dinner –I’d managed to get some groceries in the hour and half between morning and afternoon shows. I was chopping spinach for stuffed pasta shells, and the knife was new and very sharp, and I guess I was overtired and over zealous and I cut my left forefinger. The worst part was just how much I scared myself. It was sort of a shave cut rather than a slice, so it bled rather a lot. And of course it hurt badly especially that first night which made much needed sleep very hard.

Happily, health services wrapped it professionally, no stitches needed. I was even in a sling for two days just to keep it elevated! I called that doctor’s window dressing and told me I was on the take from the ace bandage company. It all looked much more dramatic than it was.

But I soon discovered how hard it was function fully with only one hand – because the whole arm was pretty out of commission even though it was only one finger than was hurt. Typing normally, not possible. Even holding a piece of paper down to write with though I’m right handed, hard. The worst of course is bathing, doing one’s hair and dressing. Try doing up trouser buttons with one hand. Surprisingly awkward. It made me super determined to keep up at work and manage with one arm, which I have been. If it weren’t so irritating, I’d be fascinated by what its like not to have the full use of my own body. Mostly my mind was just screaming "Ah, the last thing they want is a wounded intern! Must operate at full throttle yet not exacerbate pain of finger. Heal!! Function!! All at same time! Eek."

And of course the irony that vegetables were bad for my health has not escaped me.