The nine finger grip of death

A few weeks ago I got a cut, mysteriously, on my left middle finger right on the outer knuckle joint. In fact on the very spot of an old scar — I forget which of my many little incidents caused that one but it probably involved a BMX and my childhood thirst to perform tricks beyond my ability.

Anyway, this cut bubbled up into a nasty looking thing. A tower of bubble, bubble within a bubble.

It looked a bit like a wart but softer, sensitive and with a propensity to start bleeding from the slightest knock as my friends found out a few weeks ago when I ended up spraying an interesting red pattern across my favorite white shirt downstairs at a local bar.

Like most guys I left it for a week, two, three maybe (the finger, not the shirt) before finally admitting there was a problem that wasn’t going to magically disappear and headed to the doctor. It was diagnosed as something long, Latin and specifically chosen so that us mere mortals would not remember it’s name let alone how to spell it to put on our blogs.

Today I got to sit in a chair whist my finger was numbed, the blood flow restricted then the bubble cut off (to be sent away for analysis no less).

That was fine, apart from the moment my curiosity got the better of me and I looked down and glimpsed all the blood. As previously alluded to I’ve seen my blood more than enough times so that didn’t bother me too much.

What was strange is I suddenly got very hot and was regretting wearing clothes. Despite my mental reassurances that all was fine and that I was in safe hands my stomach threw a wave of nausea over me and my eyesight blurred.

Thankfully the doctor noticed I was looking a bit faint, well green he said, and the nurse made me feel more comfortable before I do something awkward like fall off the bed and crack my head open.

The next stage was the scraping and scooping out of the inside of my finger. I couldn’t feel it directly but I could feel the scraping movement reverberating through my fingers, my bone, my hand.

Once done the skin was cauterized, i.e. burnt and the smell of burning flesh reached my nose shortly before the nurse cleaned it up and bandaged it.

So here I am, bashing at my Model M as best I can with my remaining functional digits.

Back to work tomorrow alas, the deadline looming.

The keyboard there shall feel my nine finger grip of death.

[)amien

Yukky picture alert — my burnt finger for those that asked.