18 January 2010 Post therapy New device to Bend fingers not cooperating crushed hand + wire cube

Stuck hand New splint + wire cube No progress 28/01/10

There was good news and bad news. The good news was that after weeks of inactivity the fingers were beginning to respond under pressure to the inventive therapist’s torture devices. The bad news?  The mess created by the accident would take years to clear up.

The therapists were doing everything they could to get things right. They explained why they had to use various therapies and how they would implement them. They invented bindings and splints quite simply- because they had to in order to improve movement. If they did not get the fingers bending passively, there would be no movement actively.

It was unfortunate the therapy had not started sooner after the original operation to repair my fingers. The consultant now in charge said next time therapy would be introduced almost immediately following the operation. Now the option on the table was to maintain the status quo or to risk making new cuts that might possibly improve things. The new cuts would be big and would take a long time, much therapy and hard work to achieve results. I was to think hard about it. There were no easy alternatives.

The inventive therapist had devised new ways to improve the damaged digits, to squeeze every last possible millimeter of movement out of the fingers. The soft blue fabric with the Velcro strap although seemingly harmless at first had the desired if uncomfortable effect of gradually winching the tips ever closer to the palm. The special splint the therapist devised was meant to force the feckless fingers to actually do some work.

18 January 2010 Not moving enough

As a child with rheumatic fever, lying on the couch was most of the daily routine. After the strep infection had gone, there was no pain. The limbs simply did not work or support the body.  Family members took it in turns to carry the invalid from one room to another. Usually Dad carried me to appointments with the doctor. At the surgery we were inevitably shown in immediately as the receptionist tried to hurry the gangly, floppy invalid and her tall, handsome champion away from the pitying looks and sympathetic sighs in the waiting room.

Back home sister was having none of it. She suspected all this lying about was simply a case of a work-shy slacker sister trying it on. “You don’t even look sick”, she hissed, “and now I have to do all of your chores”.

28/01/10

Indolence dies hard. Indeed, slackers are everywhere. Even though the fingers had been carefully re-attached to a decent, hard working hand and were micro-stitched together next to an independent and enterprising index finger and thumb, the repaired fingers weren’t making any moves on their own. It didn’t seem fair.

Since the accident and operation the repaired digits had got too used to a life of inactivity. They let the index finger and thumb do all of the work while they seemed to have made a lifestyle choice of being lazy stiffs.

If the fingers thought the therapist would let them get away with it, then she would make them think again. It would pay to work hard using the new therapies. Effort would always be rewarded. Where effort was lacking, more pressure would be applied.

The therapist made it clear we were in this together.  Her expertise and inventive talents along with my efforts would be rewarded. She needed to be tough to promote movement. The new devices and hard work were but means to an end.

And that end is better functioning fingers. Not a quick fix. Not movement confined to only a couple of digits. But full range of motion for all fingers.

I did not choose to have the accident last October. Not for me a year of ease. Not for me the times of quiet making of sculpture. That’s not the canvas upon which I have been asked to paint. We don’t get to choose our fate, but we do get to choose how we live with it.

Just over the horizon lies art waiting to be made. There may be moments when maybe it can’t be seen. When it seems just out of reach. But it’s always there, calling us to our task. The task of the artist. The task to create.

N.B. The Chancellor’s speech in full can be read at  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/04/george-osborne-speech-conservative-conference