crushed hand sutures out 13 Nov 09

13 Nov 09

The sutures were ready to come out.  It seemed another step away from the accident toward recovery.  I did not expect it to hurt.  I had removed my own and other people’s sutures on occasion.  At most there’s a tug and a pinch, but usually no pain.  More often there’s a sense of relief when the strings are pulled.

But, I’d never had so many sutures removed from fingers and these were stuck, pulling and painful.  The surprising pain of the suture removal was trumped later that night when some invisible demon attached my fingers to electrodes, threw the switch and cranked the voltage. For good measure it began to shred my fingers with razors. Inexperience meant I had not taken any pain medication.   I kept telling myself that the pain was good. That it meant the nerves were working. That I could feel. Nonetheless, it was a relief when the hastily swallowed meds finally took effect.

try again-crushed hand sutures out 15 Nov 09

try again 15 Nov 09

Medical personnel are usually very conscientious about pain, asking how it is and does one need relief.  The emergency room medic treating my hand asked about pain. “I don’t have any”, I said.  “You need morphine”, he replied.  Never imagined ever hearing those words.  But I trusted the medic might have had a touch more experience than I did.  It was possible the cool liquid he put into my mouth might serve some future useful purpose.

A couple of years ago I was in emergency with acute appendicitis and peritonitis.  The morphine did not work.  The increased dose had no effect.  “We’re doing our best”.  “I know. Thank you.”  “Is it worse than childbirth?” “I don’t know, I don’t have children”.  What do you ask men?, I wondered.  I said something about not minding too much if the pain would stop.  It occured to me I might have said that an infant in the same situation might be making quite a noise.  I might have mentioned that the pain was not as consuming as migraines. And it certainly was not as crushing as having your heart broken.  But medics, morphine and medications can’t help that.

The waiter in the small pizzeria in Northern Michigan noticed our glassses were nearly empty.  “Do you need another beer?” he asked earnestly.  Not “would you like” or “might I get you”.  It’s not clear what it was about the way we looked that prompted this particular solicitation, more reminiscent of a query about pain relief than the consumption of an adult beverage.  Perhaps he could see something we could not.  It was possible he had a touch more experience than we did.

clown overdid it (crushed hand post exercise + work) 18 Nov 09

Artists must learn to detach from their work in order to see it critically and make improvements.  I did not recognise my hand in it’s new dressing.  It looked like some strange miss-shapen puppet monster, something I did not know, that was not part of me. Perhaps my perception had been shaken, shaped by the day’s experience.  The drawings fell apart before they could come together.  I could not see what was there.  I could not concentrate on what needed to be done.  I had not noticed that figure in the mirror, the odd, pale clown with the strange miss-shapen pincer puppet fingers that  somehow appeared in the drawing.

Coming up next in the blog: pliers, pins and professionals