Yep, that's my pinky finger going the wrong way...
So, I’m on a writing roll these days, right? I’m keying around 2000 words per day. Once you hit a consistent groove like that, nothing stops you from writing – even a broken finger.
Yep, that finger to the right is mine, the result of ‘schooling’ my 6’2″ fifteen-year-old son and his sixteen-year-old friend in a game of basketball. Yeah, two against one, at my age, and I still beat them! 
I should have stopped after the first game, but their challenge for another struck a nerve. I’m not yet willing to be “as good once as I ever was…”. After all, my son has yet to beat me on the court (although he is getting dangerously close).
Back to the finger. leading 6 to 5 (going by 1′s), I raced my son’s friend to a loose ball and jammed my finger. It just so happens that 37 years ago (did I just key that?) I dislocated the same pinky finger in much the same manner. The problem this day is that the emergency room folk told me, after
My un-lovely bones...
attempting to reset (reduce) the finger, I had destroyed the ligaments in the finger and I would most likely need surgery to repair the damage.
This xray shows what my finger looked like after the ER doctor attempted to ‘pull’ the finger back into joint. Note I keep keying the word “attempt”. At the ‘specialist’s’ office this afternoon, he was able to replace the finger to its proper joint position. Painful as it was, I am now keying in far less pain than this morning.
Yes, I AM A WRITER! I keyed in agony this morning with a dislocated finger splinted to the finger beside it. Effectively, I only had 8 fingers to work with. I still knocked out 1000 words. I had to stop every 30 to 45 seconds because the pain escalated too high to key continuously. Tonight, now that my finger is back in one piece, I have nine effective digits and only low-level pain.
Tough to key with this mess, eh?
My two fingers will be ‘buddy-taped’ for a week or so, but my word count will not suffer. My biggest concern now is a retort for my son and his friend to their taunt that they “sent me to the hospital”. All I have for them at this point? “Maybe so, but I still took the two of you down!”
In competition, whether on the court or with my streak of 37 consecutive days of keying around 2000 words a day, there is nothing like determination…
