The Digital Elegy

I debated on how to include it, but there it is, people. I know you're wincing. It's graphic, it's shocking, but hey, it's real fucking life. It hits you without long, windy introductions or preparatory speeches, man. It just waits until you're in the cardio-boxing class, trying to keep up with all the hard-asses,* working the 2.5-pound free weights during warm-ups. Maybe you're watching the instructor to keep your form right. Maybe you're watching his biceps twitch with each alternating curl. Maybe you're tracing a single bead of sweat escaping from his hairline, tracing his clenching jawline, snaking down his sinewy neck and disappearing into that pulled-taut shirt collar across his broad, broad chest and WHACK! Two and a half pounds of solid rubberized plastic held in your own right hand smashes into your left thumb.

I don't need to tell you how bad it was. You can see the picture. It's right... no, along the edge there. No, under the fingernail. I said UNDER, like on it, not under as in below. Yes, it could be a weird shadow or blur or smudge, but no, let me assure you, that's all Injury. Almost an eighth-inch wide of Living Hell. Blunt-trauma hematoma. Or maybe "contusion," I forget. It's been a while since ER went off the air.

The pain was blinding and intense, but I went through the motions of finishing the class, up to and including striking a 150-pound bag several dozen times with both hands as hard as I could. I don't know how I did it, frankly. I've heard of people in wars with limbs blown off who just get up and keep going like nothing happened, carried along by adrenaline and denial. It must have been something like that.

When I got home, I immediately kicked into action. I kept it raised, kept it elevated, gauzed it, splinted it, and administered 5 Advil. Four I swallowed and one I ground up and rubbed directly into the wound. It's non-traditional I know, but my digestive system has let me down before. I needed the relief.

I thought about visiting urgent care, but I've seen people come in with real problems before. The doctors and nurses drop everything, shove you in front of the line, they swarm, they hover, and all the people who have been waiting four hours for their amoxicillin prescription are forced to wait longer. Granted my only experience like this was when my then-2-year-old son was having a severe allergic reaction to his first exposure to kiwi, but it seemed enough like the same thing to make me think twice about it. I was an injured man, but still a Citizen.

You can probably guess I barely slept that night. The nightmares were pretty intense. I've heard that's a problem with post-traumatic stress. I don't remember the dream all that clearly, but my car was being repossessed and the repo tow truck was being driven by a bird of some kind. It was my first PTSD experience. I don't really know how literal these "flashbacks" are supposed to be.

The next day was rough. The dark-pink bruise has transitioned to a stealthy, sinister near-flesh color. I could only assume it was adopting a natural camouflage, blending into my skin-tone, in order to later jump out and catch me unawares, like any other ambush predator. There was no camouflage from the pain, though. It was most acute during very specific points of the day, like when I would take my right thumb and press as hard as I could directly on top of the place where the bruise had been. A good five minutes of that and I couldn't help feeling it. It haunted me.

Just going through the course of the day with an injury like that was an inconvenience. Or would have been, had it not occurred on the thumb of my left hand, which I use for almost nothing. But seeing it there as I would type at work, so close to my busy, busy right thumb, just reminded me of how close I had come to something completely debilitating. It also made me think about the feasibility of the existence of mirror universes existing alongside and simultaneous to our own, where everything is exactly the same, only backward, like in a mirror. In that universe, the bruise would be on my right thumb, which would be so much worse. Except in that universe I'd be left handed. But still: thisclose, people. Thisclose.

I'm doing better now. It was a few days before I stopped limping and I'm no longer considering self-amputation. The counseling has helped. The alternating cold compresses/heating pads has helped. And all the sweet, unprescribed xanax, well, that never hurts, does it?

Debilitating injuries, they make you take stock. This one has been no different. All the health and mobility and dexterity and uniform thumbnail coloration, man, we take it all for granted, every day. Every once in a while, we have to stop, look at ourselves in the mirror and decide, if it's all gone tomorrow, what will I wish I had done differently?

My answer was easy: time to cut way back on the gym. First of all, those places are fucking dangerous. Second, if I only have limited time left, do I want to spend it being uncomfortable and sweaty so I can live more years at the end of a long life, addled and dotardy? And how will I feel if I get there and I never set aside the time and effort to watch the full run of Battlestar Galactica they're showing now on BBC America? It's true what they say: trauma can really help you focus your priorities. Learn from mine.




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*the 50-something women have known childbirth AND menopause.