Healing

A few days ago, I had surgery on my hand. My right ring finger had what is called a trigger finger. What happens is when you try to bend your finger, it clicks down and snaps up. It didn’t hurt, but it was annoying, and for a year I couldn’t properly hold a pencil. 

I did all the things you’re supposed to do to fix it—an injection, physical therapy, and wearing an adorable little brace, but none of that worked and it was time for surgery. The surgeon explained the entire procedure to me, and I instantly forgot everything he said. 

Something about clipping cartilage. Or maybe it was a tendon. The guy seemed to know what he was talking about, so I agreed to let him cut into me. Before they wheeled me into surgery, he came in to see how I was doing. He was wearing an oversized coat. I said, Are you cold? He said, I’m freezing. This made me laugh. It was the last thing I was thinking about before I went under.

When I woke up, I felt like I had a brick strapped to my arm. My fingers were swollen and orange. It’s the antiseptic soap they clean you with before surgery, my husband told me. It was his birthday. We were celebrating by having him serve me meals and tie my shoes and wash my hair. Also, he learned my skin care routine. 

Later, we took the dog for a walk, and he scooped up the poop. I don’t know if I can adequately express how much I am in love with this man. For three days now, he has brewed me tea and parked next to me on the couch while I marinate in pain pills. 

A side effect of the pain medicine is extreme gratitude and whatever the opposite is of nostalgia. What I keep thinking about is the time I broke my arm when I was twelve. Breaking my arm was only one of the many crappy things that happened to me that year. How I did it was I fell off a skateboard. 

I was not a skateboarder. I literally had never stepped on one before, but for some reason, we had a skateboard in our basement, and I raised my foot and thought: I want to try this. The next thing I knew I was falling backward. When I landed on my hand, I felt my wrist bone snap. 

The pain was crazy-making, but it was hard to convey this to the people in authority. You had to use precise language and not be overly emotional. If you were wrong, well, you would’ve wasted everyone’s time and money. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to find out my arm was broken. 

I liked wearing a cast because all of my friends signed it, and I didn’t have to do my school assignments. But that was a downside too because even when I was twelve, I was a writer, and the cast was slowing me down. There was so much language to learn. So many emotions to bury and unbury. 

I scrawled out my journal entries with my left hand and then gave up and used my typewriter, tapping on the keys with the fingers of my unbroken hand, one letter at a time. One word. 

It is how I am writing to you now. The keyboard is smoother than a typewriter and my fingers are more practiced. Still, it takes time. I drift off. I drift back. Sometimes lost in the past, then like a miracle, safe in the present. 

A warm house. A cup of hot tea.