Day 20/365 - Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb

For this week's self-portrait I thought I'd introduce my hands, Lefty and Righty. Turns out that shooting a picture of both your hands at once is not an easy thing to do. Go figure.

I haven't always been particularly good to my hands, especially the right one. Once when I was very small I was sitting in the garage with a mostly full pop bottle and I stuck my right finger in the mouth of the bottle and and proceeded to shake and shake and shake and shake it. Not sure why I did it. In fact, I don't even remember it. It's one of those stories your family tells about you that you were too young to remember yourself. My guess is I just wanted to see how much pressure I could build up in the bottle as the pop got fizzier and fizzier.

In those days pop bottles were made of glass rather than plastic, and eventually the bottle exploded and bits of glass went into my hand. I still have a tiny scar from the stitches on the edge of my palm. A few years later I was hanging upside down from some monkey bars while we were visiting my aunt in San Diego and slipped. Somehow when I fell the thumbnail on one of my hands (can't remember which) was torn almost entirely off. That one I remember. Not having a thumbnail looks weird, btw.

Then, during my time in the Navy, there was the time I broke my right hand in the most idiotic way imaginable -- by getting mad and hitting things. I'd only had two drinks, so I can't even really blame it on alcohol. It was just sheer, inexcusable lack of sense on my part. I was mad about a woman and a situation I was powerless to change, and so I was walking down the street and roaring at the top of my lungs and hitting things that didn't have much give to them -- like concrete light poles. It's a wonder the people who lived nearby didn't call the police to complain about a madman roaming their neighborhood.

I didn't realize I'd broken it at the time. In fact, I went out and played basketball the next day. I'd never broken any bones before and thought (mistakenly) that if your hand was broken you wouldn't be able to move it. My hand still moved fine and the only time it really hurt was when I turned it from side to side, and that was probably just because the bones were then grinding together. I broke it on a Saturday and didn't go to get it looked at until Monday. Even then I just went to sick bay on my ship to see if they could do anything to take down the swelling. At that point my hand looked like a grapefruit with five little vienna sausages attached.

They sent me for x-rays and then it was pretty apparent my hand was broken. The x-ray showed that the last two fingers on my hand were snapped in two. The bones never did heal properly, thanks in part to the less-than-stellar care I received at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital. They should've put pins in the bones to keep them knitted together, but they just taped them to a splint they attached to my cast. The bones are more curved than straight now and they bother me from time to time.

No one to blame for it but myself, really. Guess it's like my brother is always telling me, I've got a fair amount of brains but no common sense whatsoever. Even I know how to learn a lesson, though. Hitting things in anger and frustration is not something I've ever done again, nor will I.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)