Broken Finger Update

Got a second opinion on my mangled left middle finger this morning. The last guy had said there was a good chance I would never be able to fully extend it. And once he found out I was right handed, he gave me a look like "Oh, okay, so what's the big deal!?!" Then he left the room and had the high-school age girl assistant splint it up, and only bothered to look it over when I protested.

I bet Jimmy Page's doctor showed a little bit more concern several weeks back.

Anyway, the guy I saw today is a hand surgeon named Steven Shin, who has previously attended to a number of professional athletes. He listened to my sob story, looked over my X-rays, unsplinted me, probed it thoroughly, had me try bending it slightly, took some new X-rays, examined them closely, and informed me that I was very lucky in the way the fingerbone had begun to re-fuse over the ten days since I had been splinted. He said he might have tried surgery if I had come in right away, but that if it were his injury, he would be ecstatic that the joint could be straightened so well at this point.

I'll take some credit for fine tuning the splint rigging and manipulating the bone fragment. I nearly worried myself into a heart attack, fiddling with that thing every hour of the day.

Then he gave me a much more comfortable splint for the top of my finger, instead of the one on the bottom bending it slightly backwards. "Come back in three weeks," he ordered.

Bottom line: Dr. Shin says I will have no problem playing the guitar (he plays the violin, I think). Okay, so I will have a noticeable lump on the back of my joint. And there is a chance I won't be able to hyperextend the joint the way I could before. Which does "bug," but honestly I can't make a rational argument to support the notion that my playing would be affected.

Phew.

In the meantime, I've started building up some piano skills.

Good Were the Parts We Played in Our Game

Last night I got down my acoustic and played a few songs with a splinted finger on my fretting hand:

1. Sweet Jane
2. Blackbird
3. The Ballad of Geraldine

“Sweet Jane” was a cover song played by Ten Dollar Helmet, the band I joined right after My New Invention broke up. “Sweet Jane” was usually led by electric guitarist Mark Grozkreuz. To this day, I have never heard the original track. Mark drifted out of the band in 2002 and I replaced him on guitar. Up until then I had been enjoying the low-key novelty of a bass guitar role.

Fast forward to 2007. With my broken finger, I had to try new chord fingerings. After a while, without thinking too much, I gravitated toward Paul’s White Album spotlight number, “Blackbird.” This has always been a prestige piece, a S.M.A.R.T. goal for many guitarists (I will have to defer to Matt on the exact definition), but it turns out the difficulty is not much higher without use of a left middle finger. After a couple of tries, “Blackbird” was definitely on my broken-finger setlist.

Encouraged by my disovery of one splint-friendly song, I found another: Donovan’s “Ballad of Geraldine.” A sissy song? Yeah, pretty much. But “oh, we could go to the land of your choice” in a storm. I’ve always liked this one. No false shame knocking on my door.

Swamptooth Rides Again

Swamptooth spent a few hours at the dentist today, through no fault of his own. Old fillings cracked and had to be replaced - by 21st century orally approved materials.

Backyard Progress Report

Dug twelve feet of trench yesterday, 18+ inches deep. Many weeks back, I promised not to start the airplane until there's grass in the front- and backyards.

Pictures to follow.

Which Finger?

Left middle finger still out of commission. While my guitars gather dust, here I am showing off the injury, along with some admirable parenting skills, while Don and Julian mark the demonstration with all due gravity.



Photo taken the day after Thanksgiving at The Kingston Foundation.